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Purchased   by  the    Hamill  Missionary   Fund. 


BV  3400 

.C43  1899 

Chester, 

Samuel  H. 

1851- 

1940. 

Lights  and  shadows 

of 

mission 

work  in  the  Far 

LIGHTS  AND  SHADOWS 


OF 


Mission  Woek 


m 


THE  FAR  EAST 


BEING  THE  RECORD  OF  OBSERVATIONS  MADE  DURING  A 

VISIT  TO  THE  SOUTHERN  PRESBYTERIAN  MISSIONS 

IN  JAPAN,  CHINA  AND  KOREA  IN  THE  YEAR  1897. 


/ 

BY 

S.   H.   CHESTEK,  D.  D., 

Secretary  of  Foreign  Missions  in  the  Presbyterian  Church 
IN  THE  United  States. 


RICHMOND,   VA.: 

The  Peesbtterian  Committee  of  PrBLioATioN. 


COPYEIGHT 
BY 

JAMES  K.  IIAZEN,  Secretary  of  Publication^ 
1899. 


Printed  by 

Whittet  &  Shepperson, 

Richmond,  Va. 


TO  MY  FRIEND, 

WILLIAM  HENRY  GRANT. 

v/HosE  GENEROUS  KiNdNess  made  the  experiences 
Herein  recorded  possible; 

AND  TO  THE 

MISSIONARIES  IN  CHINA,  JAPAN  AND  KOREA, 

WHOSE  Warmth  of  welcome 

MADE  THEM   ALTOGETHER   DELIGHTFUL. 


PEEFACE, 


In  tlie  autumn  of  1897  the  author  made  a 
visit  to  the  missions  of  the  Southern  Presbyte- 
rian Church  in  Japan,  China  and  Korea.  The 
visit  was  too  hurried  to  admit  of  very  extensive 
taking  of  notes,  and  the  pL^n  was  adopted  of 
jotting  down  mnemonics  that  would  serve  to  re- 
call such  things  as,  on  a  first  view  of  them,  spe- 
cially interested  him,  and  were  in  some  way  con- 
nected with  the  missionary  problem  and  mis- 
sionary life.  An  account  of  these  observations 
has  been  given  in  a  series  of  addresses  made  in 
a  few  of  our  churches  and  church  courts.  The 
renewed  interest  in  missions  that  has  seemed  to 
be  awakened  by  these  addresses  where  they  were 
delivered,  and  the  impossibility  of  reaching 
more  than  a  small  section  of  the  church  in  that 
way,  has  led  to  the  preparation  of  this  little 
volume,  which,  it  is  hoped,  may  find  its  way  into 
missionary  libraries  and  homes  in  all  parts  of 
the  church. 

Of  the  books  which  the  author's  happy  ex- 
emption from  sea-sickness  enabled  him  to  read 
6 


6  Preface. 

during  the  voyage,  and  found  helpful  in  en- 
abling him  to  have  a  better  understanding  of 
some  things  which  he  saw,  he  would  make  spe- 
cial mention  of  ^Troblems  of  the  Far  East"  by 
Hon.  George  K.  Curzon,  which,  while  none  too 
sympathetic  in  its  references  to  the  missionary 
work,  is  exceedingly  happy  in  its  descriptive 
chapters,  and  most  thoughtful  and  just  in  its  re- 
flections on  the  social  and  political  conditions 
of  the  countries  treated  of.  For  a  fuller  and 
more  adequate  description  of  a  Chinese  city, 
especially,  than  that  given  in  the  text  the  reader 
is  referred  to  the  description  of  Peking  in  Mr. 
Curzon's  book,  pp.  229-259. 

This  book  is  given  its  local  coloring  from  the 
fact  that  the  author's  visit  was  especially  to  the 
Southern  Presbyterian  Missions.  But,  as  mis- 
sion work  and  mission  problems  are  of  largely 
the  same  character  with  all  Protestant  missions, 
it  is  believed  that  the  matter  the  book  contains 
will  be  found  of  general  interest.  If  any  dull 
hearts  are  stirred  by  it  to  more  prayer  and  help- 
fulness in  the  mission  work  in  his  own  or  other 
churches,  the  author  will  be  more  than  satisfied 
and  amply  repaid  for  his  labors. 

Nashville,  Tenn. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  Page. 

To  THE  Far  East, 9 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  Country  and  People  of  Japan,        .         .         15 

CHAPTER  III. 
New  X\pan  and  Christian  Missions,        ,         .         28 

CHAPTER  lY. 
The  Country  and  People  of  China,        .         .         46 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Missionary  Problem  and  Work  in  China,         65 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Hindrances  and  Results,        .         .         .         .         77 

CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Country  and  People  of  Korea,       .         .         91 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Mission  Work  in  Korea,         ....       114 


Mission  Woek  m  the 
Fae  East. 


CHAPTEK  I. 

To  THE  Far  East. 

Those  of  my  readers  who  may  be  medi- 
tating the  possibility  of  a  foreign  tonr  will  do 
well,  before  determining  the  direction  of  their 
travels,  at  least  to  consider  the  relative  claims  of 
Europe  and  Asia.  The  one  advantage  on  the 
side  of  Europe,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  shortness 
of  the  time  required  for  the  journey.  For  the 
same  length  of  time  the  expense  of  the  Asiatic 
tour  is  far  less.  The  things  seen  are  more  in- 
teresting because  so  utterly  unlike  what  one  has 
ever  seen  before.  The  flavor  of  immemorial  an- 
tiquity and  of  associations  connected  with  the 
infancy  of  our  race  lend  an  added  charm.  And 
one  interested  in  the  triumph  of  God's  kingdom 
on  earth  will  find  in  the  Far  East  especially  the 
place  where  the  battle  is  now  on  which  is  to  de- 
termine whether  the  gospel  is  stronger  than  the 
9 


10  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

powers  of  evil  intrenched  in  their  most  ancient 
strongholds. 

Looking  at  the  matter  from  a  more  worldly 
and  prosaic  standpoint,  it  is  donhtfnl  whether, 
The  voyage.  ^^^'  pm'poses  of  absolutc  rcst,  human 
experience  furnishes  anything  quite 
equal  to  a  voyage  across  the  Pacific  in  the  month 
of  August.  Our  good  ship  is  indeed  a  ^'lodge  in 
a  vast  wilderness^'  of  waters,  where  no  rumor  of 
business  cares  can  reach  us ;  the  sea  is  even  mo- 
notonously placid,  and  we  grow  just  weary 
enough  of  the  "boundless  contiguity"  of  sea  and 
sky  to  experience  the  full  effect  of  the  vision  of 
green  hills  and  purple  waters  when  the  island 
ournewpos-  of  Oahu  first  gTCcts  US  tlirougli  the 
sessions.  niomiug  mist.  On  this  island  is  the 
city  of  Honolulu,  the  metropolis  and  seat  of 
government  of  the  Hawaiian  group.  Although 
it  is  Avithin  the  tropics,  the  climate  at  Honolulu 
is  so  modified  by  a  cold  current  from  our  north- 
western coast  that  the  maximum  temperature 
in  summer  is  only  8Y°  Fahrenheit.  The  mini- 
mum in  winter  is  55°.  Whether  viewed  from 
the  outside,  or  entered  and  explored,  it  presents 
lis  everywhere  with  views  of  enchanting  loveli- 
ness. Looking  down  from  the  top  of  the  Punch 
Bowl  or  the  Pali,  one  might  imagine  himself,  as 
Bayard  Taylor  says,  "standing  on  the  Delectable 


U- 


HAWAIIAN    FISHERMAN. 


Mission  Woek  in  the  Far  East.         11 

Mountains,  with  the  valleys  of  the  land  of  Beu- 
lah  spread  out  before  him.''  Standing  in  the 
valley  and  looking  at  the  mountains  shrouded  in 
mist,  and  the  gorges  arched  over  with  rainbows, 
the  suggestion  is  of  Bunyan's  dream  of  the  gates 
and  towers  of  the  Celestial  City.  Eoyal  palms, 
cocoanut  trees,  spreading  banyans,  oleanders, 
the  pomegranate,  the  orange,  mimosas,  banana 
groves,  all  manner  of  trailing  vines,  with  flowers 
of  every  hue,  are  everywhere.  All  this  flora  has 
been  imported,  the  soil  of  volcanic  origin  being 
originally  devoid  of  such  vegetation.  But,  once 
planted,  it  flourishes  in  the  richest  tropical  luxu- 
riance. 

The  physiognomy  of  the  native  strongly  sug- 
gests the  East  Indian  origin  which  tradition  also 
ascribes  to  him.  He  has  a  fairly  well-shaped 
head  well  set  on  broad,  square  shoulders,  a  large 
and  muscular-looking  physique,  and  an  attrac- 
tive face.  But  he  is  lackinc:  in  toughness  of 
fibre,  his  eyes  are  dull  and  his  brain  is  pulpy. 
The  women  especially  show  an  early  inclination 
to  obesity,  for  which  they  are  only  the  more  ad- 
mired. The  first  civilized  dress  introduced 
among  them  was  the  "Mother  Hubbard"  wrap- 
per, and  to  it  they  still  almost  universally  ad- 
here. One  good  of  it,  considering  the  sudo- 
rific qualities  of  the  climate,  is  that  is  does  not 


12  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

adhere  much  to  them.  In  spite  of  their  wealth 
of  black  hair  and  the  beautiful  flower  wreaths 
worn  on  their  hats,  they  do  not  achieve  much  in 
the  way  of  picturesque  appearance,  except  when 
riding  a  bicycle  or  on  horseback  astride. 

I  expected  to  see  an  exhibition  of  barbaric 
splendor  in  the  Government  House  where  the 
representative  of  our  government  now  sits  in 
the  chair  of  the  ousted  Queen.  But  it  is  simply 
a  neat  stucco  building,  with  tasteful  interior 
finishings,  but  nothing  loud  or  gaudy  about  it. 
In  the  Bishop  Museum  one  may  still  see  the 
gorgeous  feather  cloaks  once  worn  by  the  Kame- 
hamehas  on  occasions  of  state,  the  large  circular 
wooden  ^^calabashes,"  or  trays,  dug  out  and  pol- 
ished to  a  wonderful  smoothness  by  stone  imple- 
ments, and  the  ropes,  some  with  stains  of  blood 
still  on  them,  once  used  in  strangling  human  sac- 
rifices, and  the  large  hooks  once  used  to  fish  for 
sharks,  with  a  piece  of  a  Hawaiian  for  bait.  But 
these  now  possess  even  for  the  native  only  an 
antiquarian  interest. 

The  Americans  who  have  found  a  home  in  this 
^'Paradise  of  the  Pacific,"  about  three  thousand 
American  ^^  numlbor,  have  first  civilized  it, 
enterprise,  ^j^gj^  appropriated  it,  and  then  gener- 
ously donated  it  to  their  home  government. 
Without  raising  the  question  of  abstract  right 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        13 

involved  in  these  proceedings,  it  may  be  said 
that  whatever  was  done  that,  from  a  theoretical 
standpoint,  might  soein  high-handed,  has  the 
justification  of  having  been  done  for  the  sake  of 
self-preservation;  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
the  whole  result  has  been  beneficial  to  the  na- 
tives. The  introduction  by  the  early  navigators 
of  civilized  vices,  diseases,  rum  and  gunpowder 
reduced  their  numbers  during  the  century  from 
400,000  to  about  40,000.  But  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  schools,  colleges  and  churches  with 
which  the  islands  are  now  covered,  and  of  the 
orderly  administration  of  government  given 
them  by  the  Americans,  their  numbers  are  now 
increasing  again,  and  their  condition  is  in  every 
way  unspeakably  better  that  it  ever  was  under 
their  native  rulers.  What  further  will  become 
of  this  interesting  people  as  the  wards  of  our 
nation  remains  for  time  to  disclose.  Let  it  be 
hoped  that  the  public  sentiment  of  the  twentieth 
century  will  tolerate  nothing  but  justice  and 
kindness  in  our  dealings  with  them.  Our  brief 
glimpse  of  them  and  their  lovely  island  home 
was  onh^  an  episode  of  our  journey  to  the  Far 
East.  Ten  days  more  of  quiet  and  restful  sail- 
'ng,  with  only  an  occasional  grateful  gale,  just 
strong  enough  to  clear  the  ship  of  the  odors  ris- 
ing from  the  Chinese  steerage,  brings  us  in  sight 


14  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

of  land  again.  Presently  our  ship  casts  anchor 
in  Yokohama  Bay,  and  we  hasten  ashore  to  see 
the  things  new  and  old  Avhich  the  wonderful 
Sunrise  Kingdom  has  to  show  us  for  our  in- 
struction and  delight. 


Mission  Wokk  in  the  Far  East.        15 


CHAPTEE  II. 

The  Country  and  PEorLE  of  Japan. 

Many  exaggerated  ideas  are  abroad  in  regard 
to  Japan,  "but  one  thing  concerning  Avhicli  we 
Physical  ^an  scarcclj  have  an  exaggerated 
features.  {^qq^  {g  i\iq  physical  bcautj  of  the 
country.  In  sailing  aronnd  the  world  one  will 
pass  in  view  of  many  goodly  islands  and  charm- 
ing landscapes,  bnt  of  none  that  surpass  in 
beanty  those  that  greet  its  in  our  passage  throngh 
the  Inland  Sea.  The  vision  of  them,  left  behind, 
lingers  with  the  traveller  ever  afterwards  like 
memory  of  a  lovely  dream.  And  where,  among 
moimtains,  shall  we  find  the  peer  of  Fnji,  visible 
far  out  at  sea,  standing  np  like  a  sentinel  to 
gnard  the  coast,  twelve  thousand  feet  high,  an 
almost  perfect  cone,  and  crowned  with  perpetual 
snow  ? 

Of  the  total  area  of  the  country  about  two- 
thirds  is  occupied  by  mountains,  not  bro^Aii  and 
bare-  like  most  of  those  we  see  in  China  and 
Korea,  but  covered  with  green  foliage,  or  ter- 
raced and  cultivated  to  the  very  top.  Long 
avenues  lined  with  the  lofty  and  graceful  crjq)to- 


16  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

nieria  lead  back  to  picturesque  little  shrines,  or 
to  great  and  gorgeous  temples,  in  dark  shaded 
groves.  The  cherry  blossoms  in  the  spring,  the 
azaleas  in  smnmer,  the  maple  leaves  in  autumn, 
or  the  ice  crystals  on  evergreen  trees  in  winter, 
light  up  the  glens  and  gorges  with  a  perennial 
blaze  of  glory.  ISTo  wonder  the  people  love  their 
beautiful  islands  with  a  devotion  so  intense  that 
some  esteem  it  to  be  even  foolish,  and  call  them 
''the  land  of  the  gods.'' 

But  there  is  an  element  of  terror  also  mingled 
with  the  beauty  in  the  aspect  of  nature  in  Japan. 
Among  these  lovely  mountains  there  are  hun- 
dreds of  extinct  volcanoes  and  about  twenty  that 
are  still  alive.  The  tradition  of  Fuji  is  that  it 
was  heaved  up  from  the  ocean  in  a  single  night 
about  three  thousand  years  ago,  and  its  history 
is  that  one  night,  about  three  hundred  years 
ago,  the  whole  top  of  it  blew  off  with  a  great  ex- 
plosion, scattering  broken  rocks  and  lava  far 
and  wide  and  covering  the  streets  of  Tokio,  sixty 
miles  away,  with  ashes.  In  the  autumn  that 
most  extensive  and  violent  form  of  the  cyclone, 
known  as  the  "typhoon,"  sweeps  across  both  land 
and  water,  leaving  wreck  and  ruin  in  its  track. 
There  is  an  average  of  one  earthquake  a  day, 
some  of  them  mere  tremors,  but  others  so  violent 
as  to  reduce  whole  villages  to  ruins.     Accom- 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.         17 

panying  the  earthquakes  huge  tidal  waves  some- 
times sweep  over  tlie  coasts,  in  one  of  which,  a 
few  years  ago,  more  than  30,000  lives  were  de- 
stroyed. The  rivers  which  up  in  the  moun- 
tains are  little  rivulets,  playing  and  cascading 
over  beautiful  white  rocks,  are  filled  in  the 
spring  by  the  melting  snows  with  floods  that  go 
raging  do^\ai  into  the  plains,  sweeping  away 
dikes  and  bridges  and  covering  thousands  of 
acres  of  prosperous  farms  with  silt  and  gravel. 
Character-  The    character    of    the    people    is 

istics.  plainly  marked  by  both  of  these  fea- 

tures of  their  government,  being  a  combination 
of  tragic  moodiness  with  a  sort  of  playful  ces- 
theticism. 

The  aesthetic  faculty  is  strong  in  all  classes. 
The  wealthy  spare  no  pains  or  expense  on  their 
gardens  of  ornamental  shrubbery  and  flowers. 
In  the  back  yard  of  every  house,  important 
enough  to  have  a  back  yard,  flowers  of  many 
kinds,  and  especially  the  royal  chrysanthemum, 
are  cultivated  in  their  highest  perfection.  The 
school  boy's  table  is  adorned  with  flowers,  and 
the  farmer  returning  from  his  day's  work  in 
the  field  will  stop  by  the  way  to  admire  the 
beauty  of  a  budding  peach  tree.  In  the  spring 
when  the  cherries  are  in  bloom  they  go  out  in 
great  pic-nicking  crowds  to  see  and  enjoy  them. 


18  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  summer,  bands  of  pil- 
grims, dressed  in  their  white  mourning  cos- 
tumes, go  to  the  top  of  Fuji  to  worship  there 
the  gods  of  the  storm  and  earthquake.  Suicide 
is  their  refuge  from  trouble,  about  7,000  a  year 
being  regarded  as  a  conservative  estimate  of  the 
number.  The  favorite  method  in  the  olden  time 
among  the  soldier  class  was  that  knoA\m  as  liari- 
hari'  (belly-cutting.)  Before  the  weapons  of 
modern  warfare  were  introduced  every  soldier 
wore  two  swords,  a  long  one  for  his  enemies  and 
a  short  one  for  himself.  When  defeat  or  calam- 
ity overtook  him  he  would  sit  on  the  floor  of  his 
hall  with  his  friends  around  him  and  insert  the 
short  sword  into  his  side  and  draw  it  across  the 
abdomen,  after  which  a  friend  would  complete 
the  operation  of  hari-kari  by  cutting  off  his  head. 
This  was  indeed  a  ^^shuffling  off"  of  the  mortal 
coil,  and  reveals  a  strong  element  of  the  tragic 
in  those  who  would  choose  that  method  of  mak- 
ing their  exit  from  the  world. 

The  Japanese  present  a  commendable  contrast 
with  other  Orientals  in  the  matter  of  personal 
cleanliness.  Riunor  says  that,  about  the  first  of 
October,  the  average  Chinaman  takes  his  fare- 
well bath  until  the  return  of  warm  weather  the 
following  spring.  But  he  is  regarded  as  un- 
worthy of  the  name  of  a  Japanese,  whether  he 


Mission  Work  ix  the  Far  East.        19 

be  nobleman  or  peasant,  who  does  not  bathe  once 
a  day  in  water  just  below  the  boiling  point.  The 
unpainted  woodwork  of  their  houses  is  all  thor- 
oughly scrubbed  once  a  year.  Their  floors  are 
covered  with  beautiful  white  straw  matting, 
always  kept  immaculately  clean.  To  this  end, 
on  entering  a  house,  all  shoes  must  be  left  at  the 
front  door.  This  does  not  greatly  incommode 
the  native  whose  shoe  is  a  wooden  or  straw  san- 
dal that  can  be  readily  shuffled  off  or  on,  but  it 
tends  to  make  life  a  burden  to  the  foreigner  with 
laced  gaiters,  and  also  to  the  development  of  end- 
less colds  and  catarrhs  and  influenzas.  The 
only  heating  apparatus  is  the  Tlihachi,  a  small 
jar  filled  with  pulverized  ashes  with  a  few 
lumps  of  live  charcoal  on  top,  by  which  one  can 
v\'arm  his  hands  after  a  fashion,  but  which  gives 
off  more  carbonic  gas  than  heat  to  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  room.  Natives  and  missionaries 
keep  their  feet  warm  by  sitting  on  the  soles  of 
them  turned  up  behind.  The  transient  travel- 
ler whose  joints  have  not  been  educated  to  this 
posture  must  make  the  best  he  can  of  cold  feet, 
unless  he  is  able  to  effect  a  compromise  with  cus- 
tom, as  I  did,  by  means  of  a  pair  of  crocheted 
over-slippers  furnished  me  by  one  of  the  ladies 
of  our  mission.  By  the  discreet  use  of  these 
both  the  traveller's  health  and  reputation  for 


20  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

politeness  may  in  some  measure  be  saved.  Since 
the  days  of  iibraham  and  Epliron  the  Hittite, 
at  least,  we  knoAV  that  dignity  and  politeness  of 
demeanor  have  been  characteristic  of  Orientals. 
But  in  these  qualities  also  the  Japanese  stand 
pre-eminent.  When  a  visitor  enters  a  room 
they  bow,  usually  three  times,  until  the  body  and 
legs  are  at  right  angles.  If  sitting,  they  lean 
over  three  times  until  the  forehead  almost 
touches  the  floor.  The  use  of  multiplied  lion- 
orifics  and  self-depreciations,  and  the  constant 
iteration  of  deferential  grunts  and  inhalations 
is  a  serious  hindrance  to  rational  conversation. 
This  politeness  is  characteristic  of  all  classes, 
and  any  common  coolie  among  them  would  lay 
the  courteousness  of  our  ''old  time  gentleman'' 
entirely  in  the  shade.  They  are  the  Frenchmen 
of  the  East,  and,  like  the  Frenchmen  of  the 
West,  very  much  of  their  overdone  politeness  is 
only  surface  deep.  But  on  the  whole  they  are 
to  be  commended  for  it,  and  one  feels  the  con- 
trast painfully  on  coming  immediately  from 
Japan  to  America  and  coming  in  contact  with 
the  railroad  manners  of  our  great  west. 

The  people  are  almost  dwariishly  small  of 
stature,  but  have  great  poAver  of  physical  endur- 
ance. I  tested  some  of  them — as  well  as  my- 
self— thoroughly  in  that  respect  on  an  overland 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        21 

journey  from  Kochi  to  Tokiishima,  a  distance 
of  110  miles,  which,  in  company  with  Rev.  J. 
W.  Moore  and  Rev.  S.  R.  Hope,  of  the  Southern 
Presbyterian  Mission,  I  covered  in  two  days. 
Our  vehicle  was  the  famous  jin-rich-sha,  a  com- 
fortable little  sulky  pulled  by  a  man  instead  of 
a  horse.  The  name  means  literally  ^^Pull-man- 
car."  The  way  was  over  one  of  the  old  military 
roads  found  throughout  the  Empire,  some  of 
them  said  to  date  from  the  second  century  of 
our  era,  and  was  graded  for  more  than  half  the 
way  through  a  mountain  pass.  It  was  about 
eighteen  feet  wide,  the  mountains  rising  sheer 
up  on  one  side  and  a  mountain  torrent  foaming 
over  the  rocks  at  the  bottom  of  a  precipice  about 
one  hundred  feet  deep  on  the  other.  An  inci- 
dental discovery  of  the  journey  was  that  one  of 
the  many  things  the  Japanese  have  no  fear  of 
is  a  precipice.  Houses  were  built  all  along  the 
edge  of  this  one,  with  no  barriers  to  keep  the 
children  from  falling  over,  and  no  one  manifest- 
ing any  anxiety  lest  they  should  fall.  Small 
children  with  other  small  children  on  their  backs 
were  frequently  seen  standing  on  its  edge  and 
peering  over  into  its  depths.  In  going  around 
holes  and  ruts,  in  spite  of  our  protestations,  our 
men  would  go  every  time  on  the  side  of  the  preci- 
pice instead  of  on  the  side  of  the  mountain. 


22  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

Tliey  continued  this  perverse  line  of  conduct  in 
the  same  non-clialant  and  half-amused  way  even 
after  Mr.  Moore's  vehicle  had  actually  capsized 
and  pitched  him  over  the  precipice,  fortunately, 
however,  at  place  where  there  was  a  ledge  a 
short  distance  below  the  road  that  caught  him. 
We  travelled  forty-five  miles  the  first  day  with 
no  change  of  men  and  sixty-five  miles  the  second 
day  with  three  chano-es.  The  rich-sha  man  in 
costume  looks  much  like  a  college  athlete  equip- 
ped for  the  running  match,  is  very  proud  of  his 
muscle  and  speed,  and  always  assumes  a  rapid 
and  high-stepping  gait  when  passing  through  a 
village.  A  good  one  will  easily  cover  a  distance 
of  fifty  miles  on  a  2:ood  road  in  ten  hours.  What 
the  Japanese  lack  in  size  they  also  make  up  in 
spirit  and  courage.  The  Chinese  contemptu- 
ously call  them  ''wojen' — island  dwarfs.  But 
as  the  Chinese  have  more  than  once  found,  to 
their  sorrow,  they  have  ever  been  a  most  unsat- 
isfactory people  for  enemies  to  encounter  in  war. 
Zingliis-Khan,  with  his  Tartars,  overran  China, 
and  his  grandson,  Kublai-Klian,  thought  to  do 
the  same  thing  Avith  Japan,  supposing,  no  doubt, 
that  he  would  have  quite  a  holiday  time  with  the 
little  islanders.  The  expedition,  fitted  out  with 
much  pomp  and  circumstance,  reached  the  shores 
of  Japan,  but  never  landed.     It  would  have  re- 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        23 

turned  much  wiser  than  it  came  except  that  only 
three  men  of  it  survived  to  tell  the  tale.  The 
war-like  propensities  of  the  Japanese  seem  to 
have  heen  among  their  original  and  permanent 
traits  and  not  a  recent  development.  Each  pro- 
vincial city  has  its  ancient  castle,  the  strong- 
hold of  the  old  Daimio,  who  held  fief  of  the 
Mikado  to  nde  the  province.  A  fine  specimen 
of  these  is  the  one  at  Xagoj^a.  It  is  built  of  huge 
blocks  of  stone,  its  two  main  towers  being  170 
feet  high  and  crowned  with  figures  representing 
dolphins  of  enormous  size  and  covered  with 
beaten  gold.  It  is  surrounded  by  a  moat  that 
can  be  filled  with  water  or  emptied  at  pleasure. 
Its  base  is  large  enough  to  furnish  storage  room 
for  several  months  supply  of  provisions,  so  that 
the  old  feudal  lord,  even  though  he  might  not  be 
strong  enough  to  come  out  and  fight  in  the  open, 
could  look  out  from  his  observation  tower  and 
smile  at  all  his  foes.  In  the  old  days  of  fighting 
with  swords  the  sword  of  the  Samura  had  the 
temper  of  a  razor,  and  the  enemy  Avho  came 
within  its  sweep  was  almost  sure  to  emerge 
from  the  encounter  minus  a  head.  From  the 
earliest  days  of  their  recorded  history  to  this 
day  the  soil  of  Japan  has  never  been  successfully 
invaded  by  a  foreign  enemy.  They  have  now  an 
army  of  about  250,000  men,  including  reserves, 


24  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

drilled  and  equipped  after  the  latest  models, 
and,  except  in  the  cavalry  wing  of  it,  hardly 
less  formidable,  man  for  man,  than  that  of  any 
western  power.  They  have  a  navy  that  is  second 
in  fighting  power  only  to  that  of  England  in  the 
waters  of  the  Far  East.  And  in  the  light  of 
present  day  developments  one  wonders  some- 
times if  we  may  not  some  day  see  them  united 
with  England  and  America  in  an  invincible  alli- 
ance for  hnman  freedom,  not  only  in  the  Orient, 
but  in  the  world. 

The  old  national  religion  of  Japan  is  Shinto- 
ism — ^^the  way  of  the  gods."  It  is  a  strange  re- 
Morais  and  ligion  witli  a  strangc  name,  inasmuch 
religion.  as  it  talvcs  uo  account  of  any  gods, 
nor  of  morality  in  any  form.  Its  moral  postu- 
late is  ihat  obedience  to  the  Emperor  is  the 
whole  duty  of  man,  and  that,  as  for  the  rest,  all 
a  Japanese  needs  to  be  perfect  is  to  follow  the 
bent  of  his  nature,  which  will  always  lead  him 
right.  In  later  times  it  entered  into  a  fusion 
with  Confucianism,  with  which  it  had  some 
things  in  common,  the  resultant  combination 
being  a  sort  of  apotheosis  of  patriotism,  loyalty 
and  obedience  to  "the  powers  that  be."  This  is 
to  a  large  extent  the  religion,  or  substitute  for 
religion,  of  the  upper  and  educated  classes. 

Kuddhism  prevails  among  the  masses,  and  is 


BUDDHA,    NARA,  JAPAN. 

Height,  53  feet;  face,  16x9  feet;  eye-brows,  5  feet;  mouth,  2)4  feet. 
Five  hundred  pounds  of  gold,  16,000  pounds  of  tin,  over  20,000  pounds 
of  copper,  besides  iron,  used  in  casting.     Date,  1150  A.  D. 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.         25 

more  alive  in  Japan  than  it  is  even  in  India,  the 
land  of  its  birth.  Xowhere  else  are  the  temples 
so  nnmerons,  so  costly,  so  well  kept,  or  so 
thronged  with  worshippers.  Their  gold  candel- 
abra, their  bronze  filigree,  their  lacquered  chests, 
their  fretted  ceilings  of  bine  and  gilt  and  red 
wrought  in  lotus  flowers,  butterflies  and  various 
mythical  figures,  all  as  fresh  and  clean  as  the 
day  they  were  made,  present  a  contrast  indeed 
to  the  dingy  old  temples  of  China.  The  vitality 
of  Buddhism,  though  probably  somewhat  dimin- 
ished of  late  years,  is  still  everyAvhere  in  evi- 
dence. 

As  to  the  general  moral  result  there  is  much 
difference  of  opinion.  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  and 
Mr.  Lafcadio  Hearii  are  delighted  with  it.  The 
national  custom  of  promiscuous  bathing  and  the 
general  indifference  of  both  sexes  to  the  ex- 
posure of  their  persons  is  pointed  to  by  some  of 
their  romantic  admirers  as  a  sign  of  their  Edenic 
innocence.  But  the  impartial  observer  may  find 
himself  forced  to  see  in  such  things  both  a  sign 
and  a  cause  of  the  opposite  condition.  The 
census  of  1895  reported  an  average  of  one  di- 
vorce to  every  three  marriages,  and  in  every 
city  the  signs  of  legalized  social  immorality 
are  most  painfully  abundant.  In  the  foreign 
banks  and  business  houses  in  the  coast  cities  it 


26  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

has  been  found  necessary  to  employ  Chinese  in- 
stead of  Japanese  in  positions  of  trust.  Japa- 
nese trade  will  have  a  more  permanent  prosper- 
ity when  their  silk,  which  they  sell  by  weight, 
is  found  on  inspection  to  have  less  chalk  in  it, 
when  a  larger  proportion  of  their  matches  will 
strike,  and  when  the  repudiation  of  contracts 
discovered  to  be  unprofitable  becomes  less  com- 
mon. Judged  even  by  Oriental  and  heathen 
standards,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  Japanese  must 
be  pronounced  to  be  rather  below  than  above 
par  in  the  matter  of  every-day  morals.  On  the 
other  hand,  their  riddance  of  the  curse  of  a  pro- 
fessional official  class,  like  the  Mandarins  of 
China  and  the  Yangbans  of  Korea,  their  national 
pride  and  desire  to  appear  well  in  the  eyes  of 
civilized  nations,  and  the  subjection  of  rulers  to 
the  criticism  of  an  active  and  out-spoken  public 
press  have  lifted  them  far  above  all  other  east- 
ern nations  in  their  political  morality.  At  pres- 
ent, by  the  operation  of  the  revised  treaties,  they 
are  just  coming  into  the  fraternity  of  civilized 
nations  on  terms  of  recognized  equality.  It 
will  mean  much  for  the  welfare  of  other  coun- 
tries in  the  Far  East  as  well  as  for  herself  if 
Japan  shall  so  deport  herself  in  this  new  role  as 
to  justifv  the  action  of  the  powers  in  yielding 
her  tliis  recognition.     The  missionary  body,  who 


Mission  Wokk  ix  the  Far  East.         27 

constitute  much  the  Largest  portion  of  her  for- 
eign residents,  will  rejoice,  for  her  sake  as  well 
as  for  their  o^\ti,  if  she  succeeds  in  doing  so.  It 
is  they  also  Avho  have  done  most  in  the  past  to 
make  such  recognition  possible,  and  who  will  do 
most  in  the  future  to  make  her  worthy  of  it. 
And  it  is  a  hopeful  sign  that  this  is  noAV  being 
acknowledged  by  some  of  her  leading  statesmen. 


28  Lights  AND  Shadows  of 


CHAPTER  III. 

]^Ew  Japan  and  Ciikistian  Missions. 

The  Japanese  are  intellectually  bright  and 
quick,  with  a  consuming  thirst  for  knowledge, 
especially  of  things  that  are  supposed  to  be  new. 
They  have  never  been  characterized  by  the  false 
pride  and  conservatism  that  have  well  nigh  pet- 
rified and  mummi-fied  China,  but  have  always 
been  ready  to  examine  new  ideas,  and  to  wel- 
come them  if  they  seemed  better  than  what  they 
had,  from  whatever  source  they  might  come. 
They  readily  exchanged  their  old  barbarism  for 
the  civilization  of  China  when  it  was  brought  to 
them,  and  no  more  hesitate  to  acknowledge  their 
obligations  to  Confucius  than  if  he  had  been  a 
native  Japanese.  So,  when  our  western  civiliza- 
tion was  brought  to  them  they  had  an  open  eye 
for  its  advantages,  and,  after  a  little  preliminary 
dallying,  made  such  a  rush  for  it  as  has  no  paral- 
lel in  the  history  of  civilization.  In  thirty  years 
time  they  have  set  up  and  put  in  full  operation 
a  system  of  parliamentary  government  under  a 
written  constitution.  The  Emjieror,  though 
still  nominally  absolute,  rules  practically  through 
his  cabinet  and  parliament,  like  the  constitu- 


Mission  Wokk  in  tile  Fai:  East.         29 

tional  sovereigns  of  Europe.  Under  the  feudal 
system  the  old  Daimios  not  only  had  the  power 
of  life  and  death  themselves,  but  their  retainers 
(tlie  Samurai)  were  privileged  to  swish  off  the 
heads  of  the  common  people  mth  their  razor- 
like swords  on  the  slightest  provocation.  These 
have  now  been  required  to  step  down  and  out, 
leaving  justice  to  be  administered  by  courts  of 
law,  under  written  codes  framed  on  European 
models.  A  school  system  has  been  organized 
that  ascends  in  regnlar  gradation  from  the  pri- 
mary school  with  compulsory  attendance  through 
the  middle  school,  high  school  and  college,  and 
culminates  in  the  great  Imperial  University  at 
Tokyo,  which  receives  an  annual  appropriation 
from  the  government  of  about  $200,000.  They 
have  better  postal  and  telegraph  facilities  than 
we  have,  and  countless  numbers  of  daily,  weekly 
and  monthly  publications,  the  city  of  Tokyo 
alone  having  seventeen  daily  papers.  The  streets 
of  the  larger  cities  are  fast  being  equipped  with 
electric  cars  and  lights.  ]^early  two  thousand 
miles  of  railway  are  in  operation,  the  great  com- 
mercial centres  from  Tokyo  to  Kobe  being  con- 
nected by  a  line  over  which  two  through  trains 
a  day  are  run  without  change.  So  far  as  the  ex- 
ternal features  of  our  civilization  therefore  are 
concerned,  Japan  has  them  in  abundance. 


30  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

What  then  Lacks  she  yet  ?  Much  every  way, 
and  especially  she  lacks  yet  the  infiltration  of 
trne  civilization  into  the  character  of  her  people ; 
and  she  lacks  the  spirit  of  it  luhich  is  Christi- 
cmity. 

In  the  streets  of  E'agasaki  I  met  a  native  gen- 
tleman dressed  in  a  Derby  hat,  a  steam  laun- 
dered shirt  and  collar,  a  silk  cravat,  and  over 
these  a  linen  dnster.  The  upper  half  of  him  was 
thus  Christianly  arrayed,  but  the  lower  half  of 
him  was  not  arrayed  at  all.  He  was  a  walking 
allegory.  Japan  is  civilized  at  the  top,  but  not 
at  the  bottom.  Out  in  the  country  among  the 
common  people  one  sees  many  more  relics  of 
primitive  savagery  than  among  the  Chinese,  or 
even  the  Koreans.  She  is  also  civilized  on  the 
outside,  but  not  yet  on  the  inside  to  any  great 
degree.  And  whether  this  external  civilization 
of  ours  Avill  in  the  long  run  do  her  more  good 
than  evil,  depends  on  whether  we  shall  succeed 
in  our  effort  to  give  her  along  with  it  our  Chris- 
tian religion,  which  alone  can  effect  that  regen- 
eration of  character  which  can  make  Japan  or 
any  other  nation  truly  civilized  and  great. 
Christian  Amoug  the  otlicr  Wcstem  things 

that  Japan  rushed  at  for  a  time  was 
Christianity.  When  the  feudal  system  was  over- 
thro\\Ti  the  feudal  retainers,  who  were  soldiers, 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        31 

scholars,  and  gentry  all  in  one,  found  themselves 
in  the  new  order  of  things  without  a  reason  of 
existence.  Some  of  them  went  abroad  and 
studied  in  foreign  schools.  Of  these  some  be- 
came real  Christians,  and  others,  finding  a  con- 
venient mode  of  subsistence  in  lecturing  in 
churches  and  practicing  on  the  credulity  of  the 
Christian  public,  became  Christians  for  the  sake 
of  the  loaves  and  fishes.  On  their  return  they 
naturally  became  associated  with  the  mission- 
aries from  the  countries  they  had  visited,  and 
found  at  once  a  sphere  of  usefulness  and  a  means 
of  livelihood  as  the  missionaries'  teachers,  inter- 
preters, and  helperSo  They  reported  also  to  the 
men  of  their  class  that  the  civilization  they  so 
much  admired  was  allied  in  the  West  with 
Christianity.  Christianity  thus  gradually  be- 
came popular  with  the  Samurai.  Meanwhile 
many  of  them  had  also  turned  politicians,  and 
come  to  occupy  positions  of  influence  in  the  gov- 
ernment ;  and  as  churches  grew  and  multiplied 
they  were  found  to  have  a  goodly  number  of 
la^\^ers,  judges,  and  members  of  parliament  on 
their  rolls,  and  there  was  even  some  foolish  talk 
of  having  Christianity  adopted  as  the  national 
religion.  The  churches  and  missionary  boards 
were  very  naturally,  but,  as  it  seems  to  me,  not 
very  wisely  or  scripturally,  elated,   and  much 


32  Lights  and  Shadows  op 

was  made  in  missionary  magazines  of  the  fact 
that  we  had  obtained  a  foothold  among  the  ^^bet- 
ter  classes"  in  Japan,  and  mnch  was  hoped  from 
their  influence  for  the  rapid  evangelization  of 
the  country.  In  twenty  years  from  the  time  the 
first  Protestant  church  was  organized  in  Yoko- 
hama about  40,000  converts  had  been  enrolled, 
the  great  majority  of  them  being  from  this 
Samurai  class. 

Just  at  this  point  a  sudden  and  unexpected 

turning  of  the  tide  set  in,  and  now  for  some 

years  past  our  Protestant  missions  in 

A  reaction.         ^  ^ 

JapaUj  instead  of  marching  on  to 
swift  and  a^lorious  victory,  have  found  them- 
selves hard  pressed  to  hold  their  own.  Some 
writers  express  the  opinion  that  this  reaction 
has  spent  its  force,  and  that  we  may  now  expect 
to  see  the  native  church  enter  on  another  period 
of  rapid  growtli.  I  cannot  see  that  the  present 
situation  has  any  such  promise,  nor  do  I  think 
it  desirable  that  Ave  see  any  more  ^'boom  times" 
in  the  experience  of  our  Japan  missions.  The 
prosperity  of  the  early  years  was  in  many  re- 
spects only  seeming,  and  the  present  situation 
is  the  natural  outcome  of  some  things  that  were 
an  element  of  that  seeming  prosperity.  I  think 
a  partial  explanation  of  the  reaction  is  to  be 
found  in  the  followinc;  facts. 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        33 

First,  the  available  material  in  the  class  which 
had  been  the  special  object  of  evangelistic  effort 
was  about  exhausted.  This  class  numbered  only 
about  80,000  in  the  empire,  and  when  40,000 
of  them  had  been  enrolled  as  communing  mem- 
bers in  the  churches  we  can  readily  see  that  there 
was  not  much  field  for  further  enlargement  in 
that  direction.  If  all  of  these  had  been  Chris- 
tians after  the  type  of  Joseph  ^eesima  they 
would  have  made  an  evangelistic  force  that 
would  have  been  irresistible.  But  many  of  them 
had  simply  come  in  on  the  popular  wave,  and 
their  motives  were  everything  else  but  spiritual. 
Many  others,  who  were  real  Christians,  were 
unfortified  by  any  thorough  instruction  in  Chris- 
tian doctrine  and  characterized  by  all  the  native 
instability  and  love  of  that  which  was  new. 

Then,  ^Svhile  men  slept,  the  enemy  came  and 
sowed  tares  among  the  wheat.''  ^ever  was  there 
a  more  striking  illustration  of  this  devil's  strat- 
egy, and  never  was  there  a  more  fruitful  soil  for 
tares  to  grow  in  than  in  the  minds  of  these  nim- 
ble-witted,  novelty-loving,  vivacious,  and  vola- 
tile Japanese.  Rationalists  from  this  country 
and  from  Europe  went  over  and  made  them  be- 
lieve that  tliey  represented  the  new,  the  ad- 
vanced, the  improved  phases  of  Christian 
thought  in  the  west,  while  the  earlier  mission- 


34:  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

aries,  with  their  infallible  Bible  and  their  for- 
mulated creeds,  represented  only  what  was  old 
and  effete.  The  reason  that  these  heresies,  in- 
stead of  merely  weakening  the  church's  spirit- 
ual power  and  checking  its  growth,  did  not  work 
utter  havoc  and  devastation  with  it,  is  because 
there  was  an  element  in  it  which  had  learned,  in 
a  genuine  experience,  and  in  the  fires  of  persecu- 
tion, the  divine  power  of  God's  inspired  word 
and  the  preciousness  of  Christ's  atoning  blood. 
But  this  element  was  not  strong  enough  to  over- 
come all  the  reactionary  tendencies,  and  did  not 
itself  wholly  escape  being  affected  by  them. 

It  was  found  also  that  the  class  spirit,  which 
is  a  trouble  everywhere,  but  is  peculiarly  strong 
in  Oriental  countries,  began  to  assert  itself  and 
to  make  our  church  of  the  ^'better  classes"  less 
zealous  than  it  should  have  been  in  carrying  the 
gospel  to  those  below  them.  To  expect  that  this 
would  be  otherwise  is  more  than  the  history  of 
even  regenerate  human  nature  warrants  us  in 
expecting  of  it. 

And  so  the  history  of  our  Japan  missions, 
looked  at  from  the  standpoint  of  the  hopes  once 
cherished  of  them,  has  been  somewhat  disap- 
pointing. 

There  has  been  disappointment  also  in  an- 
other direction  from  which  much  was  once  ex- 


Mission  Work  in  the  Fak  East.        35 

Educational  pected.  The  first  missionaries  who 
results.  went  out  found  themselves  much  re- 
stricted in  the  matter  of  residence  and  travel, 
and  also  in  tlie  privilege  of  openly  preaching  the 
gospel.  Eut  their  services  were  in  demand  as 
teachers,  and  they  took  the  lead  in  the  new  edu- 
cational movement,  hoping  that  this  would  at 
least  undermine  the  old  idolatries  and  prepare 
the  way  for  the  gospel.  If  this  movement  had 
continued  under  missionary  auspices  it  might 
have  had  this  result,  but  meanwhile  Japanese 
young  men  were  going  abroad  to  study  in  foreign 
schools.  When  they  returned  with  their  degrees 
they  very  naturally  wished  themselves  to  fill  the 
places  in  their  native  schools,  and  in  course  of 
time,  except  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  English, 
the  foreign  teachers  were  largely  supplanted  by 
them.  Most  of  them  came  back  mentally  satu- 
rated with  the  views  of  Huxley  and  Spencer,  or 
whatever  they  had  come  in  contact  with  that 
claimed  to  be  new  in  western  science  and  philos- 
ophy. The  whole  government  educational  sys- 
tem is  now  under  their  control  and  has  become, 
not  only  anti-Christian,  but  thoroughly  materia- 
listic and  atheistic. 

The  following  facts  will  show  to  what  extent 
this  kind  of  education  has  undermined  the  old 
idolatries.     If  it  has  done  so  with  a  few  of  the 


36  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

higher  classes,  it  does  not  seem,  in  their  case,  to 
have  i)repared  the  way  for  the  gospel,  but  rather 
for  something  even  worse  than  what  they  had 
before.  The  famous  statesman.  Count  Ito,  may 
be  fairly  taken  to  represent  this  class.  He  says, 
"I  regard  religion  ?s  quite  imnecessary  to  a  na- 
tion's life.  Science  is  far  above  superstition, 
and  what  is  any  religion.  Buddhism  or  Christi- 
anity, but  superstition,  and  therefore  a  possible 
source  of  weakness  to  a  nation." 

Among  the  masses  the  old  idolatries,  instead 
of  disappearing,  seem  to  be  taking  on  new  life 
and  vigor,  and  are  seeking  now  to  extend  and 
propagate  themselves  by  methods  they  have 
learned  from  the  missionaries.  At  Kobe,  in 
company  with  Rev.  H.  B.  Price,  I  attended  a 
funeral  conducted  by  two  priests,  one  of  whom 
was  a  woman,  at  which  there  was  a  gorgeous  dis- 
play of  flowers  and  much  beating  of  drums  and 
various  spectacular  accompaniments.  In  reply 
to  Mr.  Price's  inquiry,  we  were  told  that  the  per- 
formers represented  '^a  sect  of  Shinto,  somewhat 
like  the  Salvation  Army."  At  another  place  we 
saw  some  handsome  western  style  stone  build- 
ings which,  we  were  told,  were  "a  Buddhist 
Theological  Seminary,"  where  several  hundred 
young  men  were  being  trained  for  the  jDricst- 
hood. 


Mission  Work  ix  the  Far  East.        3t 

At  Kioto  there  has  just  been  completed  the 
finest  temple  ever  built  in  Japan,  at  a  cost  of 
about  $2,000,000,  which  was  all  met  bv  private 
contributions,  chiefly  of  the  common  people. 
The  great  wooden  pillars  of  the  portico  were 
reared  by  ropes  woven  of  the  hair  of  many  thou- 
sands of  women,  the  most  precious  thing  they 
had  to  offer,  devoted  to  the  purpose.  In  the  en- 
closure of  another  great  temple  we  saw  some 
very  modern  looking  machinery  at  work,  which 
we  found  Avas  an  electric  light  plant  that  was 
being  used  to  furnish  light  to  some  carpenters 
who  were  repairing  the  roof  of  the  temple.  At 
Tokio  I  saw  great  crowds  of  people  going  out  on 
electric  cars  over  a  road  from  which  school 
houses,  law  courts,  parliament  houses,  steam  fac- 
tories, and  all  kinds  of  things  belonging  to  west- 
ern civilization  were  in  full  view  to  the  magnifi- 
cent and  well-kept  temples  on  the  outskirts  of 
the  city,  where  they  stood,  some  of  them  dressed 
in  cut-away  coats  and  Derby  hats,  and  bowed 
and  clapped  their  hands  before  the  idols  of 
bronze  and  stone.  Some  of  them  chewed  wads 
of  paper  on  Avhich  prayers  were  written  and 
threw  them  at  the  idols.  If  the  paper  wad  stuck, 
the  prayer  was  supposed  to  be  efficacious ;  if 
otherwise,  it  was  offered  in  vain. 

So,  as  for  beautiful  and  progressive  Japan, 


§8  Lights  and  Shadows  oIP 

the  old  idolatries  are  still  there;  and  a  much 
more  formidable  enemy,  educated  atheism^  is 
also  there;  and  a  Christian  chnrcli  is  there 
which  is  in  many  respects  other  than  we  wish  it 
might  be;  and  this  is  the  missionary  problem 
that  now  confronts  ns  in  that  most  interesting 
country. 

And  now  the  question  is,  what  is  to  be  done 
about  it  ? 

First  of  all,  it  seems  to  me,  some  useful  les- 
sons lie  on  the  surface  of  this  history  that  greatly 
need  to  be  learned,  and  yet  which  the  church 
is  very  slow  to  learn.  Our  Master  tells  us  that 
the  missionary  anointing  he  received  was,  first 
of  all,  "to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  poor."  If  the 
situation  in  Palestine  in  his  day  had  been,  as  it 
was  in  the  beginning  of  our  Japan  missions,  that 
he  had  no  access  to  the  poor  and  did  have  access 
to  the  better  classes,  he  would  have  preached  the 
gospel  to  them.  But  we  do  not  think  he  would 
have  felt  any  elation  at  such  a  state  of  affairs, 
nor  counted  on  any  special  advantage  to  his 
cause  from  their  financial,  social,  political,  or 
other  forms  of  Avorldly  influence.  Through  the 
whole  course  of  Christian  history  whenever  the 
church  has  leaned  upon  this  broken  reed  its  hand 
has  always,  sooner  or  later,  been  pierced.  In 
building  the  church,  as  in  building  a  house,  the 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        3D 

best  place  to  begin  is  at  the  bottom.  As  the 
building  progresses  the  middle  and  the  top  will 
eventually  also  be  reached.  Therefore,  if  in 
China  and  Korea  or  elsewhere  our  first  access 
is  only  to  the  poor  and  lowly,  let  us  not  be  dis- 
couraged, but  rather  rejoice  on  that  account,  re- 
membering that  "God  hath  chosen  the  weak 
things  of  the  world  to  confound  the  things  which 
are  mighty;  that  no  flesh  should  glory  in  his 
presence." 

Again,  Japan  furnishes  a  striking  object  les- 
son to  show  that  they  are  mistaken  who  think 
that  secular  education  and  western  material 
civilization,  going  in  advance  of  the  gospel  in 
any  of  these  old  eastern  countries,  are  in  any 
sense  a  preparation  for  it.  On  the  contrary, 
they  leave  the  old  barriers  unremoved,  and  erect 
new  and  stronger  ones  in  addition  to  the  old  for 
the  gospel  to  overcome.  It  is  too  late  now  to  ap- 
ply this  lesson  in  Japan,  but  we  may  apply  it 
in  China  and  Korea.  Our  experience  in  Japan 
should  teach  the  church  that  this  is  its  day  of 
opportunity  in  those  countries,  to  go  in  and  evan- 
gelize them  first,  so  that  when  our  science  and 
civilization  reach  them,  as  they  speedily  will, 
they  will  come  to  Christian  instead  of  to  heathen 
peoples,  and  do  them  good  instead  of  harm. 

Finally,  as  to  Japan,  it  may  be  said  that  our 
mission  history  there  has,  in  a  certain  sense,  f ol- 


40  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

lowed  providential  lines ;  and,  although  the  situ- 
ation as  thus  developed  be  a  difficult  one  to  deal 
with^  the  very  last  thing  we  ought  to  do  is  to  be- 
come discouraged  about  it.  There  are  some 
features  in  it  that  are  full  of  encouragement  and 
Encouraging  chccr.  While  the  church  there  at 
ea  ures.  ppescut  coutaius  a  good  deal  of  chafF 
and  tares,  it  also  contains  many  earnest,  spirit- 
ual, and  praying  men,  who,  in  the  battle  that  is 
now  fully  on,  will  not  be  found  wanting.  And 
while  it  contains  some  native  preachers  who  are 
not  as  sound  and  evangelical  as  they  should  be, 
there  are  also  a  goodly  number  who  are  aware 
of  and  mourn  over  the  things  that  are  wrong, 
and  who  are  ready  to  be  used  for  the  new  and 
different  kind  of  work  that  is  now  waiting  to  be 
done.  I  heard  one  preach  on  the  text,  ^'I  am 
come  that  they  might  have  life,"  and  the  outline 
of  the  sermon  as  given  me  by  Rev.  R.  E.  McAl- 
pine,  of  our  mission,  differed  from  the  sermon 
outline  we  often  see  published  in  our  Monday 
morning  papers  as  a  piece  of  bread  differs  from 
a  cake  of  sawdust.  The  points  emphasized  were : 
(1),  The  high  aim  of  Christ  towards  men — to 
give  them  life — as  contrasted  with  Confucius 
and  other  teachers.  (2),  The  necessity  of  this 
life,  men  being  spiritually  dead.  (3),  The  char- 
acter of  it :  it  is  spiritual,  penetrating,  and  satu- 
rating the  soul,  working  from  within  outwards 


Mission"  Work  in  the  Far  East.        41 

in  the  life  and  character.  (4),  The  spiritual  ef- 
fects of  it,  illustrated  by  Christ's  miracles  of 
healing;  set  forth  in  his  sermon  on  the  mount, 
shown  in  the  lives  of  his  apostles;  experienced 
by  us  in  temptation,  poverty,  danger^  and  perse- 
cution. (5),  If  we  have  this  life,  shall  we  self- 
ishly keep  the  joy  of  it  to  ourselves,  or  try  to 
communicate  it  to  our  fellowMuen  ? 

I  think  it  is   inspirinoj  to  know 

Needs.  . 

that  we  have  native  preachers  in 
Japan  who  can  preach  sermons  like  that.  The 
needs  of  the  present  time  as  they  impressed 
themselves  on  me  are,  first,  a  large  increase 
of  the  missionary  force.  The  increase,  how- 
ever, should  be  only  of  men  able  to  deal  with 
difficult  problems  in  a  wise  way,  and  especially 
of  men  whose  voices  will  always  ring  true  on 
the  Bible  as  an  infallible  rule  of  faith,  and  on 
the  central  truths  of  the  old  gospel.  Then 
we  need  a  native  ministry  trained  by  such  mis- 
sionaries as  these,  in  practical  work  as  well  as 
theology,  and  taken  from  the  lower  classes,  so 
that  they  will  naturally  be  in  sympathy  with 
them.  And  then  we  need  to  ffo  out  from  the 
great  cities  where  the  few  hundreds  of  thousands 
live,  into  all  the  small  towns  and  villages  where 
the  40,000,000  live,  and  preach  the  simple,  old, 
orthodox  gospel,  imtil  all  the  people  have  learned 
to  know  and  understand  what  it  is.     This  work; 


42  Lights  and  Shadows  op 

will  necessarily  be  slow  and  toilsomej  largely 
hand  to  hand,  and  unattended  by  any  brilliant 
and  spectacular  results.  The  true  kingdom  of 
God  will  no  more  come  in  Japan  than  it  has  ever 
done  elsewhere  "with  observation."  But  if  we 
will  do  the  will  of  God  in  this  matter,  in  faith 
and  patience,  then  after  we  have  done  it  we  shall 
inherit  the  promise.  N^ot  by  western  science  and 
education,  nor  by  political  or  social  influence, 
nor  by  any  other  human  influence  whatsoever, 
but  only  by  the  foolishness  of  preaching  that 
gospel  which  is  the  wisdom  and  the  power  of 
God,  will  the  old  idolatries  be  finally  over- 
thrown, and  the  idols  be  cast  to  the  moles  and 
the  bats,  and  Japan  become  in  deed  and  in  truth 
a  Christian  nation.  On  the  whole  it  seemed  to 
me  that  the  conditions  that  confront  our  mis- 
sionaries in  Japan  are  more  trying,  and  their 
work  more  difficult,  than  those  of  any  of  the 
fields  I  visited.  Thev  are  standins:  in  their  lot 
bravel}^,  cheerfully,  and  hopefully,  asking  of  us 
only  our  sympathy,  our  prayers,  and  our  earnest 
co-operation  in  their  work. 

The  native  Christians  also  rightly  look  to  us 
for  the  same  thing.  I  had  a  visit  from  one  of 
the  elders  of  the  church  at  ^JsTagoya,  a  captain 
in  the  army,  who  came  to  talk  over  the  situation, 
and  to  urge  that  we  should  not  diminish,  but 
that  we  should  try  to  enlarge  our  work  among 


Mission  Woek  ix  the  Far  East.        43 

them.  He  said  we  had  prayed  to  God  to  give 
ITS  churches  in  Japan,  and  in  answer  to  our  pray- 
ers he  had  given  ns  many,  most  of  which  were 
still  in  the  weakness  of  infancy.  And  now  to 
abandon  any  of  these  chnrches  and  leave  them  to 
perish  ^Svonld  not,"  it  seemed  to  him,  '^be  treat- 
ing God  with  proper  politeness."  So,  speaking 
reverently,  as  Capt.  Hibiti  meant  his  expression, 
it  seemed  to  me. 

Vrhat  the  church  needs  most  of  all  is  the  wil- 
lingness to  answer  this  touching  appeal.  And 
the  day  we  ought  to  look  and  pray  for  is  the  day 
when  it  shall  be  said,  God  has  made  His  people 
willing  in  the  day  of  His  power} 

^  Japan  also  needs  a  ^yell  endowed  Christian  school  of 
a  grade  equal  to  the  best  government  colleges,  the  pat- 
ronage of  which  would  come  from  the  graduates  of  the 
mission  schools.  Only  from  such  a  school  can  we  hope 
to  obtain  the  Christian  leaders,  both  in  the  ministry  and 
ill  secular  life,  that  are  necessary  to  the  success  of  the 
work  on  any  large  scale.  To  guarantee  that  such  a 
school  would  remain  Christian  and  orthodox,  for  the 
present  and  for  some  time  to  come,  both  its  endoAvment 
and  its  board  of  management  should  be  retained  in  this 
country.  If  this  course  had  been  pursued  with  the  Do- 
shisha,  the  present  unhappy  outcome  of  that  enterprise 
would  have  been  avoided. 

The  remarks  in  this  chapter  concerning  unwarranted 
and  unrealized  hopes  from  the  effect  of  Western  educa- 
tion and  civilization  are  not  intended  to  imply  any  de- 
preciation of  the  right  kind  of  Christian  education, 
which  always  has  been  and  always  will  be  found  to  be  an 
essential  part  of  successful  missionary  work. 


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Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel,... 

St.  Andrew's  University  Mission, 

St.  Hilda's  Mission, 

Baptist  Missionary  Union,  America, 

Baptist  Southern  Convention, 

Disciples  of  Christ, 

Christian  Church  of  America, _. 

The  ivuml-al  Churches  in  co-operatiou  with) 

the  American  Board's  Mission, / 

American  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 

Methodist  Church  of  Canada, 

Evangelical  Association  of  North  America,.. 

Methodist  Protestant  Church, 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church  (South), 

United  Brethren  in  Christ, 

Scandinavian  Alliance  Mission  In  Japan, 

General  Evang'l  Protestant  (German  Swiss), 

Society  of  Friends,  U.  S.  A., 

The  Christian  and  Missionary  Alliance, 

Unitarian, 

Unlversallst,   

Salvation  Army, 

Hephzibah  Faith  Missionary  Association,  ... 

Independent  (native), 

Independent  (foreign), 

i 

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o 

46  Lights  and  SiIxVdows  of 


CHAPTEE  IV. 

The  Country  and  People  of  China. 

The  essential  difference  between  Chinese  and 
Japanese  native  cliaracter  is  shown  in  the  stolid 
and  immovable  opposition  which  China  presents 
to  the  enlightenment  and  improvements  that 
have  been  knocking  at  her  gates  for  more  than 
half  a  centnry  from  the  nations  of  the  West. 
There  is  method  in  China's  madness,  however, 
in  this  matter,  for  preserving  as  she  has  done, 
almost  nnchanged,  the  way  of  doing  things  in- 
angiirated  by  the  fonnder  of  her  nation,  who  is 
claimed  not  without  plausible  reason  to  have 
been  the  grandson  of  Xoah,  the  transition  to  new 
ways  which  must  come  sooner  or  later  will  in- 
volve a  revolution  that  can  hardly  be  accom- 
plished without  a  violent  disruption  of  the  ]3res- 
ent  social  order.  Meanwhile,  those  who  would 
like  to  see  wliat  Oriental  life  was  like  at  least  as 
far  back  as  the  days  of  Abraliam  can  do  so  by 
paying  a  visit  to  some  of  the  interior  cities  and 
villages  of  the  Celestial  Empire.  Excluding 
Manchuria  and  Thibet,  China  is  about  two- 
thirds  as  large  as  the  United  States,  and  posses- 


Mission  Wouk  in  the  Far  East.        4T 

ses  all  the  variety  of  geographical  features,  re- 
sources, soil,  and  climate  that  are  found  in  the 
same  extent  of  country  in  other  parts  of  the 
world.  In  different  parts  of  China  differing 
environments  have  produced  some  variation  of 
type  among  the  people.  But  these  are  rather 
physical  than  intellectual  and  moral.  In  their 
characteristics,  customs,  and  ways  of  looking  at 
life  we  find  among  them  throughout  the  empire 
a  remarkable  homogeneousness. 

The  best  part  of  China  as  respects  both  soil  and 
people  is  the  region  of  the  Yangtse  valley,  in 
which  the  stations  of  our  Southern  Presbyterian 
Mission  are  located.  If  my  reader  will  assist 
me  by  the  vigorous  use  of  his  imagination,  I  will 
endeavor  to  show  him  some  of  the  things  to  be 
seen  in  this  region  which  constitute  what  may  be 
called  our  Missionary  Environment  in  China. 

For  a  vicAv  of  the  country  we  will  take  our 
stand  on  one  of  the  high  hills  that  are  found  at 
A  rural  frcqueiit    intervals    along    the    river 

scene.  bauks.  Froui  this  view  point  the 
great  valley  spreads  out  before  us  northward  as 
far  as  the  eye  can  reach.  The  alluvial  plain  ly- 
ing between  the  Yangtse  and  the  Hoang-ho  on 
the  north  is  the  largest  body  of  valley  land  to  be 
found  in  one  body  anywhere  in  the  world.  It  is 
dotted  all  over  with  villages,  hundreds  of  them 


4S  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

being  in  plain  view  from  our  hilltop,  their  adobe 
houses  reminding  us,  as  we  watch  the  yellow- 
skinned  people  coming  out  and  going  in,  of  a 
multitude  of  great  yellow  ant  hills.  Between 
the  villages  are  the  little  farms  of  from  one  to 
three  acres  in  extent,  naturally  fertile,  and 
dressed  with  liquid  fertilizer  every  afternoon 
until  the  air,  even  our  hilltop,  is  laden  with  the 
perfume.  In  this  way  their  productive  power 
is  preserved  unimpaired  age  after  age,  and,  al- 
though cultivated  with  the  most  archaic  imple- 
ments, the  same  old  wooden  plow  and  pick  that 
the  grandson  of  Noah  used,  and  the  fingers  of 
the  people,  one  would  judge  from  the  luxuriant 
growth  and  dark  green  color  of  the  vegetation 
that  they  are  yielding  now  their  very  maximum 
of  food  in  the  form  of  rice  and  beans  and  vege- 
tables. These  farms  are  inclosed  in  a  network 
of  canals,  which  serve  to  irrigate  the  crops,  and 
as  highways  of  travel  instead  of  roads.  These 
canals  are  crowded  with  house  boats  and  rice 
boats  and  foot  boats  and  wood  rafts  and  small 
junks,  driven  by  sails  or  pulled  by  ropes  or  pro- 
pelled by  a  single  crooked  oar  that  works  on  a 
pivot  at  the  stern,  with  a  motion  exactly  like 
that  of  a  fish's  tail.  They  are  crossed  by  fre- 
quent bridges  of  beautiful  arched  stone  work, 
the  best  of  them  many  hundreds  of  years  old. 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        49 

We  see  also  a  multitude  of  stone  structures  of 
two  upright  pieces  with  two  transverse  pieces  at 
the  top,  more  or  less  artistically  carved,  and  cover- 
ed with  inscriptions.  These  are  memorial  arches 
of  those  who  have  given  some  extraordinary  evi- 
dence of  the  virtue  which  the  Chinese  have  exag- 
gerated into  a  vice,  and  which  they  call  '^filial 
piety"  ;  most  of  them  in  memory  of  young  women 
whose  betrothed  husbands  died,  and  who  gave  the 
supreme  evidence  of  filial  piety  by  leaving  their 
own  homes  and  devoting  themselves  to  tTie  ser- 
vice of  the  mother-in-law  that  was  to  have  been, 
or,  better  still,  by  joining  their  betrothed  in  the 
spirit  world  through  the  door  of  suicide. 

Out  in  the  rice  fields  and  bean  patches,  and 
coming  and  going  on  the  tow-paths,  are  the  peo- 
ple, like  the  stars  of  heaven  for  multitude,  not 
one  in  a  thousand  of  whom  has  ever  had  a  dream 
or  an  aspiration  beyond  that  of  three  meals  of 
rice  a  day,  seasoned  with  a  few  vegetables  and  a 
little  salt  fish.  They  are  hard  featured,  curi- 
ous, unsympathetic,  and  ungracious,  and  they 
flock  to  a  foreigner,  and  close  him  in,  if  he  comes 
anywhere  in  reach  of  them,  like  ants  to  a  piece 
of  bread.  One  of  the  least  enticing  phases  of 
missionary  life  in  China  is  that  you  can  never 
get  away  from  these  people.  They  encompass 
you  like  a  suffocating  atmosphere,  which  one 


50  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

feels  at  times  to  be  intolerable,  but  can  in  no- 
wise escape  from.  The  missionary  can  only  for- 
tify himself  against  the  nervous  irritation  it  pro- 
duces by  nursing  visions  of  the  time  when,  at 
the  end  of  his  eight  years'  term,  he  will  be  able 
to  renew  his  vitality  by  breathing  once  more  the 
air  of  his  native  woods  .and  hills.  In  China  he 
feels  at  times  that  one  breath  of  these  were  worth 
a  king's  ransom. 

The  hill  on  which  we  stand  and  all  the  sur- 
rounding hills  are  cemeteries,  where  grave 
mounds  have  been  accumulating  for  four  thou- 
sand years,  until  they  lie  as  thick  almost  as  they 
can  lie,  one  against  another ;  and  in  the  mulberry 
groves,  on  the  canal  banks,  and  on  every  rising 
ground  in  the  fields  are  the  heavy  wooden  coffins, 
holding  the  unburied  bodies  of  those  who  died 
too  poor  to  afford  the  luxury  of  interment,  or 
who  have  been  waiting  for  months,  or  perhaps 
years,  for  a  rascally  luck  doctor,  supported  by 
the  family,  to  find  them  a  fortunate  place  for 
burial.  It  is  a  grewsome  sight,  indeed,  and  no 
one  with  a  heart  in  him  can  witness  it  without 
being  appalled  at  the  thought  of  this  innumer- 
able multitude,  who,  while  the  Christian  church, 
which  was  commissioned  to  evangelize  them, 
and  whose  first  reason  of  existence  has  been  to 
carry  out  that  commission,  has  been  apparently 


Mission  Work  in  the  FxVr  East.         51 

going  on  the  theory  that  this  was  a  side  issue,  a 
kind  of  optional  duty,  or  no  duty  at  all,  have 
now  gone  forever  heyond  the  reach  of  evangeliza- 
tion. But  whoever  may  have  been  responsible 
for  these,  for  those  living  multitudes,  working  in 
those  rice  fields  and  coming  and  going  on  those 
tow-paths,  the  church  of  to-day  that  lives  con- 
temporary with  them  is  responsible.  And  if  we 
fail  to  do  what  we  can  to  give  them  the  gospel 
which  others  have  given  to  us,  they  also  shall 
die  in  their  sins,  but  their  blood  will  be  required 
at  our  hands. 

Another    important    feature  of  the  environ- 
ment of  a  missionary  in  China  is  the  city  in 
A  Chinese       wliich  he  Hvcs.    It  is  an  amazing  rev- 
^^^^'  elation  to  one  who  sees  it  for  the  first 

time  of  the  conditions  in  which  it  is  possible  for 
human  beings  to  exist  and  thrive.  The  Chinese 
say, 

"  Above  is  the  palace  of  heaven ; 
Below  are  Hangchow  and  Soochow." 

Beautiful  for  situation  is  Hangchow,  over- 
looked by  rocky  hills  that  duplicate  themselves 
in  the  clear  waters  of  the  West  Lake  that  lies 
between  them  and  the  city.  But  I  enjoyed  the 
privilege  of  seeing  Hangchow  in  rainy  Aveather, 
and  tasted  to  the  full  ^'the  myriad  and  assorted 
odors"  that  rise  from  its  open  air  sewerage  and 


52  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

from  the  islands  of  garbage  standing  up  out  of 
pools  of  a  saturated  solution  of  house  and 
kitchen  refuse.  The  main  street  of  the  city  at- 
tains the  enormous  width  of  ten  feet,  but  the 
other  streets  have  an  average  width  of  about 
seven  feet. 

As  one  looks  up  the  street  the  most  obtrusive 
feature  in  the  prospect  is  the  long  row  of  painted 
and  gilded  sign  boards  hanging  perpendicularly 
in  front  of  the  shop  doors  on  either  side.  The 
houses  are  usually  two-storied,  the  upper  stories 
being  the  homes  of  the  people  and  the  lower  ones 
their  shops  and  stores.  Across  from  the  upper 
windows,  above  the  gilded  sign  boards,  rope;  are 
stretched,  on  which  are  hung  blue  cotton  trou- 
sers and  petticoats  galore,  for  such  an  airing  as 
the  atmosphere  of  Hangchow  affords.  The  fea- 
ture of  ''contrast,''  which  Mr.  Curzon  declares 
to  be  "the  dominant  note  of  Asian  individual- 
ity," is  conspicuously  exhibited  in  the  interiors 
of  the  shops  and  stores.  In  one  of  them  you  will 
see  displayed  the  finest  and  most  richly-colored 
silks  and  satins  and  embroideries  in  the  world. 
I^ext  door  you  will  see  those  same  silks  being 
woven  by  the  untidiest  of  women  on  an  old  ram- 
shackle loom  that  creaks  and  threatens  to  fall 
down  at  every  stroke  of  the  batten.  ^N^ext  door 
to  an  ivory  shop,  filled  with  carvings  of  such 


Mission  Wokk  in  the  Fak  East.         53 

beauty  and  delicacy  as  only  Chinese  patience 
and  deftness  of  finger  can  produce,  stands  an 
auction  room  for  unwashed,  second-hand  cloth- 
ing, or  old  rags.  Next  door  to  this  is  a  teashop, 
where  a  great  crowd  is  gathered  to  gossip  and 
smoke  and  gamble  with  dice  and  dominoes  and 
fighting  crickets,  or,  with  endless  chatter  and 
gesticulation,  to  settle  a  half-dozen  neighborhood 
quarrels  at  one  time.  Opium  dens  are  appal- 
lingly frequent,  half  concealed,  but  revealing 
their  presence  by  the  emission  of  their  sicken- 
ing odors.  Entering  the  court  of  a  Buddhist 
temple,  once  imposing  with  its  massive  timbers 
and  the  graduated  ascent  of  its  paved  approaches, 
but  looking  old  and  dingy  now,  its  glory  long  de- 
parted, we  see  a  few  irreverent  worshippers  per- 
forming before  the  idols,  but  a  great  crowd  find- 
ing entertainment  in  the  performances  of  the 
professional  story-teller,  the  juggler,  the  ventril- 
oquist, or  going  into  or  coming  out  of  the  booths 
where  every  conceivable  kind  of  humbug  side- 
show is  in  full  blast.  If  we  stay  there  long  we 
shall  find  ourselves  the  greatest  side-show  of  all, 
and  most  inconveniently  hustled  by  a  crowd 
whose  idea  of  the  dignity  of  an  American  citizen 
is  expressed  by  the  greeting,  ^'Where  did  you 
come  from,  you  old  red-bristled  foreign  devil  ?" 
Out  in  the  little  narrow  street  are  the  thousands 


64  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

and  tens  of  thousands  of  tlie  people,  jamming 
street  life  ^^^  jostling  each  other  in  what  seems 
to  be,  bnt  is  not,  an  impracticable  ef- 
fort to  get  where  they  are  going,  and  mingled  in 
what  seems  to  be,  but  is  not,  inextricable  confu- 
sion. An  embroidered  sedan  is  loaded  with  a 
fat  mandarin  in  silk  robes  and  huge  spectacles 
in  tortoise-shell  frames,  his  head  bobbing  to  the 
motion  of  his  carriers,  portentous  in  his  dignity, 
sublimely  unconscious  of  his  absurdity.  A 
creaking  wheel-barrow  is  loaded  with  three  half- 
naked  coolies  on  one  side  and  three  ugly  black 
pigs  on  the  other.  The  man  with  the  bamboo 
pole  across  his  shoulders  transports  by  ropes  sus- 
pended from  either  end  of  it  every  conceivable 
kind  of  burden;  the  traveller's  luggage,  boxes 
of  merchandise,  a  movable  restaurant,  baskets 
of  fresh  cabbage  and  turnips,  or  of  eggs  that 
were  once  fresh,  but,  as  likely  as  not,  are  now 
far  gone  in  the  process  of  transformation  into 
sulphuretted  hydrogen.  Most  pitiful  of  all  to 
see  are  the  women  hobbling  along  on  their  poor 
little  stumps  of  bound  feet,  many  of  them  carry- 
ing in  their  arms,  or  strapped  to  their  backs, 
from  one  to  three  very  gaily-dressed,  but  very 
dirty-faced  and  mangy-headed  children.  Most 
forlorn  and  wretched  looking,  but  most  useful  in 
their  office  of  street  scavengers,  are  the  dogs,  as 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.         55 

bitterly  anti-foreign  as  the  literati,  but  whose 
superstitious  fear  of  the  foreigner  is  luckily 
stronger  than  their  hate,  so  that  as  we  pass 
along  they  first  rush  out  with  a  furious  bark  and 
then  immediately  tuck  tail  and  disappear  behind 
the  scenes.  Seemingly  impossible  indeed  the 
situation  becomes  when,  in  the  midst  of  all  this 
jam  and  jumble,  a  wedding  procession  going  one 
way  meets  a  funeral  procession  going  the  other. 
But  in  the  long  course  of  their  experience  the 
Chinese  have  wisely  come  to  an  understanding 
about  some  things,  and  one  of  these  is  as  to  who 
has  the  right  of  way  in  the  street.  And  so,  in- 
credible as  it  would  seem,  they  all  manage  some- 
how to  work  their  way  along  and,  for  anything 
we  ever  hear  to  the  contrary,  to  reach  their  ap- 
pointed destinations. 

Another  thing,  of  Avhich  we  are  likely  to  see 
several  in  the  course  of  a  morning,  is  a  Chinese 
street  quarrel,  Avhich  differs  from  all  other  quar- 
rels as  everything  Chinese  differs  from  the 
same  thins:  evervwhere  else  in  the  world.  We 
observe  two  men  walking  side  by  side  engaged 
in  a  conversation  which  grows  more  and  more 
animated  as  they  proceed.  They  are  probably 
exchanging  opinions  as  to  which  of  their  re- 
spective mothers  was  the  most  disreputable 
character  in  Chinese  history.     In  the  space  of 


56  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

half  a  mile  they  have  wrought  themselves  into  a 
perfect  frenzy  of  rage.  Their  voices  have  as- 
sumed a  tone  to  which  the  grating  of  a  shovel 
on  the  hearth  is  music.  Finally  one  of  them 
gives  utterance  to  a  sentiment  whose  vileness  of 
expression  and  comprehensive  breadth  of  un- 
complimentary implication  the  other  cannot 
hope  to  rival,  whereupon  the  victor  receives  the 
plaudits  of  the  crowd,  and  the  vanquished,  hav- 
ing ^^lost  face/'  retires  to  grieve  over  his  dis- 
comfiture. I  was  told  that  these  quarrels  rarely 
had  any  practical  results  beyond  a  little  harm- 
less pulling  of  queues,  but  I  saw  with  my  o^vn 
eyes  three  first-class  fisticuffs  grow  out  of  them, 
from  which  both  parties  emerged  with  ugly  knots 
on  their  heads,  and  after  which  I  confess  that 
my  respect  for  the  Chinese  and  my  hopes  for 
the  future  of  their  nation  were  both  considerably 
enlarged. 

Last  and  most  picturesque  of  all  things  to  be 
seen  in  this  unique  street  life  is  the  professional 
beggar.  He  is  a  privileged  character,  belonging 
to  a  guild  that  protects  his  interests,  for  which 
protection  he  pays  an  initiation  fee  of  thirty 
Mexican  dollars. 

For  an  equipment,  his  face  is  covered  with 
something  worse  than  ordinary  mud.  His  gray 
blouse,  coming  to  the  knees  and  frayed  at  the 


Mission  Wokk  in  the  Fae  East.        57 

edges,  is  stiff  with  that  upon  which  he  has  been 
lying  in  the  street.  The  part  of  his  person  ex- 
posed to  view  is  a  mass  of  festering  sores.  His 
plan  of  campaign  is  to  promenade  the  street, 
stopping  before  each  shop  door,  going  through 
various  contortions  and  singing  a  lugubrious 
tune,  with  the  view  of  making  himself  so  dis- 
agreeable that  no  customer  will  enter  the  shop 
while  he  stands  there.  When  the  reluctant  shop- 
keeper at  last  capitulates  by  handing  him  out  a 
cash,  the  beggar  magnanimously  raises  the  siege 
and  moves  on  to  the  next  shop.  Over  some  shop 
doors  you  will  see  a  piece  of  paper  posted,  with 
an  inscription  to  the  effect  that  a  fee  has  been 
paid  to  the  beggars'  guild,  in  consideration  of 
which  that  shop-keeper  is  to  have  immunity 
from  their  solicitations  for  the  space  of  twelve 
months. 

Time  fails  to  tell  of  the  thousand  other  things 
that  enter  into  this  amazing  and  bewildering 
conglomerate  of  life  in  the  streets  of  a  Chinese 
city.  It  is  intensely  interesting  to  one  who  sees 
it  for  the  first  time  and  passes  on  to  other  scenes. 
But  as  a  permanent  feature  of  our  missionary 
environment  it  has  a  tendency  to  grow  monoto- 
nous, and  to  have  the  reverse  of  a  tonic  effect  on 
missionary  nerves. 

While  the  missionaries  have  their  headquar- 


58  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

ters  in  the  cities,  mose  of  the  meiij  and  some  of 
the  women,  sjDend  much  of  their  time  itinerating 
among  the  smaller  towns  and  villages.  There- 
fore the  available  modes  of  travel  become  an 
important  feature  of  their  environment. 

In  Central  China  the  canals  take  the  place  of 
roads,  and  the  principal  means  of  locomotion  is 
Modes  of  the  house  boat.  By  carrying  your 
own  chair  and  bed  and  provisions, 
and  something  to  read  and  a  supply  of  penny- 
royal and  insect  powder,  one  can  enjoy  life  fairly 
well  on  a  house  boat,  provided  he  is  not  restless 
on  the  score  of  speed.  A  rice  boat  is  a  smaller 
but  speedier  craft,  and  is  not  to  be  recommended 
for  a  rainy  night,  such  as  the  one  Mr.  Paxton 
and  I  had  for  our  trip  from  Sinchang  to  Soo- 
chow,  a  distance  of  sixty  miles,  which  we  made 
in  sixteen  hours.  Its  covering  is  a  piece  of 
bamboo  matting,  open  at  both  ends,  and  usually 
well  supplied  with  holes,  so  that  you  can  get  full 
benefit  of  both  the  rain  and  wind.  We  asked 
the  boatman  if  he  had  any  bugs  on  board.  He 
said,  ^'Yes,  a  couple,  but  they  are  family  bugs, 
and  will  not  draw  nigh  you."  ^^Any  mosqui- 
toes?'' Answer,  ^^None,  if  you  keep  moving; 
but  if  you  stop,  one  and  a  half."  Our  faith  in 
his  assurances  was  not  great,  but  we  did  keep 
moving,  and  if  either  the  two  bugs  or  the  one 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        59 

and  a  half  mosquitoes  did  draw  nigh  iis,  it  was 
while  Ave  were  asleep,  and  they  did  not  succeed 
in  waking  us. 

But  when  a  boat  will  not  take  you  where  you 
wish  to  go,  then  the  problem  of  locomotion  be- 
comes like  that  in  the  case  of  the  Arkansas  trav- 
eller, who  was  told,  you  remember,  that  which- 
ever Avay  he  went  he  would  not  go  far  before  he 
would  wish  he  had  gone  some  other  way.  In 
the  region  from  Tsingkiang-pu  north  they  have 
the  ^^mule  litter"  and  the  famous  two-wheeled 
cart  drawn  by  two  mules  tandem.  Being  pre- 
vented by  want  of  time  from  visiting  this  part 
of  our  field,  I  did  not  have  the  opportunity  of 
becoming  acquainted  by  personal  experience 
with  these  two  phases  of  missionary  life.  But 
of  the  cart  I  was  told  that  the  wheels  were  usu- 
ally only  partially  encompassed  by  the  tire,  and 
that  in  combination  with  Chinese  roads  it  is  the 
most  perfect  device  yet  framed  by  man  for  dis- 
covering the  exact  location  of  every  joint  and 
bone  in  the  human  body.  The  wheel-barrow  I 
had  a  very  small  experience  of,  but,  small  as  it 
was,  I  have  not  since  felt  the  slightest  ambition 
to  have  it  enlarged.  The  Chinese  never  lubri- 
cate their  wheel-barrows,  because,  they  say, 
"noise  is  cheaper  than  oil.''  You  sit  on  the  side 
of  it,  with  one  foot  extended  in  front  and  the 


60  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

other  supported  by  a  rope  stirrup.  To  maintain 
one's  position  with  dignity  when  the  driver 
pushes  you  in  his  energetic  way  across  a  gully, 
requires  the  most  rapid  power  of  adjustment, 
as  Avell  as  forethought  and  presence  of  mind.  As 
a  device  for  teaching  one  to  appreciate  the  lux- 
ury of  walking,  the  Chinese  wheel-barrow  is  in- 
comparable. In  all  the  Orient  to-day,  as  in  the 
days  of  Isaac  and  Jacob,  the  donkey  is  a  favorite 
instrument  of  transportation.  I  rode  one  from 
E'ankin  five  miles  out  to  the  Ming  Tombs ;  but 
going  back  I  preferred  to  Avalk  through  the  broil- 
ing sun.  Toothing  in  China  is  exactly  like  what 
the  same  thing  is  anywhere  else  in  the  w^orld. 
Whether  it  be  man  or  animal,  the  power  of 
heredity  working  through  millenniums  of  isola- 
tion, wdth  no  modification  from  foreign  admix- 
ture, has  developed  in  every  case  something  that 
is  peculiar  to  China.  The  donkey  is  no  excep- 
tion to  this  rule.  His  gait  is  a  rough  jog,  in- 
stead of  an  easy  amble.  Our  American  donkey's 
bray,  we  know,  is  a  unique  phenomenon  in  the 
realm  of  sound.  But  that  of  the  Chinese  donkey 
has  a  quality  all  its  own.  It  was  that,  even  more 
than  his  gait,  which  distressed  me  and  made  me 
rather  walk  than  ride  him.  There  are  no  words 
in  English  to  describe  the  heart-rendering  pathos 
of  it.     It  was  as  if  an  appeal  to  heaven  against 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.         61 

the  cruelty  and  oppression  of  ages  were  at  last 
findins:  utterance  in  one  lone;,  loud,  undulatinc; 
wail.  And  when  our  party  of  three  met  another 
party  of  six  and  all  nine  of  the  donkeys  began 
at  one  time  to  exchange  the  compliments  of  the 
day,  one  would  not  have  been  much  astonished 
to  see  the  dead  coming  out  of  those  graves  on 
the  hillside,  mistaking  it  for  an  announcement 
that  the  day  of  judgment  had  come. 

The  Chinese  inn  I  had  experience  of  had  its 
name  inscribed  over  the  door  in  a  character 
which  signified  ^'Ilouse  of  excellent  felicity." 
I  have  no  doubt  it  was  a  truthful  inscription 
from  a  Chinese  standpoint,  inasmuch  as  all 
their  ideas  of  felicity,  comfort,  and  convenience 
are  exactlv  the  reverse  of  ours.  Its  c^uest  room 
had  a  door  opening  without  a  shutter,  through 
which  the  multitudinous  Chinese  public  were 
privileged  to  come  in  ^.nd  inspect  us  and  our  be- 
lono'ino's  to  their  hearts'  content.  It  had  a  dirt 
floor,  and  its  Avails  and  roof  were  frescoed  with 
dirt  and  cobwebs.  It  had  one  piece  of  furniture, 
in  the  shape  of  a  platform  in  one  corner,  with  a 
piece  of  ragged  and  dirty  straw  matting  spread 
over  it  for  a  bed.  Such  as  it  was,  Mr.  Haden 
and  I  were  tired  enough  to  take  a  refreshing 
nap  on  it,  and  then  went  on  our  way  rejoicing — ■ 
to  leave  it  behind 


62  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

Missionary  ^^  Sliakespearc  could  have  visited 

homes.  {^L  soiiie  of  the  missionary  homes  in 
China,  he  Avonld  have  had  a  new  conception  of 
a  thing  to  describe  as  "shining  like  a  good  deed 
in  a  naughty  world."  It  is  the  wise  policy  of 
most  missions  to  build  comfortable  western-style 
houses  for  their  members,  and  with  the  nice 
tableware  and  hric-a-hrac  ornaments  that  are  to 
be  had  in  the  Orient  for  a  trifle,  it  is  easy  with  a 
small  outlay  to  make  a  sweet  and  attractive 
home.  Such  homes  all  missionaries  ought  to 
have,  if  possible,  to  which  they  may  go  when 
their  day's  work  is  over  and  find  rest  from  the 
nerve  strain  that  one  can  see  must  be  incident 
to  work  in  such  conditions  as  I  have  described. 
But  it  is  not  always  possible  to  have  such  homes. 
In  opening  a  new  station  it  usually  takes  a  year, 
or  sometimes  two  and  three  years,  of  negotiating 
and  battling  with  the  authorities  to  buy  a  piece 
of  ground.  After  that  comes  the  experience  of 
the  leisureliness  with  which  Oriental  carpenters 
carry  out  a  building  contract.  During  this  time 
the  missionary,  glad  to  get  a  foothold  of  any 
kind,  contents  himself  with  such  accommoda- 
tions as  he  may  be  able  to  secure.  I  saw  in  the 
outskirts  of  Kiasliing  the  little  three-roomed 
mud  hovel  where  Dr.  Venable  and  Mr.  Hudson 
spent  one  whole  winter  without  kindling  a  fire, 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.         63 

except  under  the  dirt  overij  because  there  was  no- 
where else  to  kindle  it.  In  the  spring  Mrs.  Ven- 
able  joined  them  and  lived  there  several  months. 
Afterwards  they  moved  into  a  five-roomed  hovel, 
and  finally  into  a  native  house  in  the  city,  where 
they  are  now,  which  has  plenty  of  rooms,  but 
the  rooms  are  so  small  and  dark  and  unventi- 
lated  that  they  cannot  be  made  either  sanitary  or 
comfortable.  At  Wusih  I  found  two  missionary 
families  living  in  ramshackle  native  houses 
fronting  on  a  filthy  street  eight  feet  wide,  with 
the  rear  windows  hanging  over  a  filthy  canal. 

But,  no  matter  what  kind  of  exterior  sur- 
roundings nor  interior  comforts  or  discomforts 
there  might  be,  I  found  the  inside  of  every  mis- 
sionary home  I  visited  to  be  a  place  of  bright- 
ness and  cheer.  So  far  from  complaining  of 
their  physical  hardships  are  they  that,  as  we 
know,  when  they  come  back  to  us,  lest  they 
might  seem  to  be  complaining,  they  shrink  from 
even  telling  us  the  facts  of  the  case.  Xeither  are 
they  unhappy  on  account  of  them.  They  are  ab- 
sorbed and  happy  in  their  work.  And  it  is  evi- 
dently true  with  most  of  them  that,  by  emptying 
their  hearts  of  worldly  ambitions  and  the  care 
for  worldly  comforts,  there  has  only  been  made 
the  greater  room  in  them  for  the  blessings  of 
that  kingdom  which  ^^is  not  meat  and  drink,  but 


64  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy 
Ghost.''     One  thing  I  think  they  crave  to  know 
of  ns  who  remain   at  home — that  we  cherish 
them  in  our  hearts,  that  we  remember  them  in 
our  prayers,  and  that  we  are  resolved  to  support 
them  in  the  work  which  is  ours  as  well  as  theirs, 
and  yet  is  neither  ours  nor  theirs — but  Christ's. 
In  closing  this  chapter  let  me  say  a  word  con- 
cerning the  genuine   and   delightful   spirit   of 
brotherhood  which  I  found  prevailing  among 
the  missionaries  of  all  denominations  in  China. 
The  denominational  lines  existing  here  are  re- 
produced there,  as  is  inevitable.     But  breaches 
rmtyand       of   Spiritual   unity   growing   out    of 
Jli' cMnesr     thcsc  are  rare.     Presbyterians  of  all 
missions.        brauchos  co-operate  in  work  to  such 
an  extent  as  makes  them  practically  one.     I  can- 
not speak  authoritatively  of  others  in  that  re- 
spect, but  I  can  say  that  I  received  everywhere 
the  same  welcome  into  the  homes  of  the  mission- 
aries of  other  churches  as  of  those  of  my  own, 
and  the  friendships  formed  with  some  of  them 
I  count  among  the  most  valued  trophies  brought 
back  from  my  visit  to  the  Far  East. 


Mission-  Woek  iisr  the  Far  East.        65 


CHAPTEE  V. 

The  Missionaky  Problem  and  Work  in 

China. 

The  mission  of  the  church  in  China  is  not  to 
civilize  the  Chinese.  They  have  a  civilization 
which  is  very  different  from  ours,  but  which  is 
very  old  and  elaborate,  and  which,  having  been 
evolved  contemporaneously  with  their  national 
character,  suits  them  in  some  respects  better 
than  our  civilization  ever  will.  Their  ancestors 
were  dressing  in  silks  and  living  imder  estab- 
lished government  and  forms  of  social  life  ages 
before  ours  emerged  from  the  forests  of  north- 
ern Europe,  where  the^  dressed  in  animal  skins, 
ate  raw  meat  for  breakfast  and  roots  and  berries 
for  dinner,  and  drank  ale  at  their  feasts  out  of 
cups  made  of  the  skulls  of  their  enemies  slain  in 
battle.  Our  mission  is  not  to  introduce  among 
them  our  western  scientific  knowledge  and  the 
material  comforts  and  conveniences  of  our  west- 
ern civilization.  These  will  find  their  way  to 
them  in  the  course  of  tim.e.  But  to  the  extent 
that  they  do  so  in  advance  of  our  gospel  work, 
they  will  constitute  an  additional  barrier  in- 
stead of  an  advantage  to  that  work. 


^^  Lights  and  Shadows  o^ 

The  cliurcli's  business  in  China  is  to  plant 
and  establish  the  kingdom  of  God;  and  God's 
instrument  for  that  purpose  there  and  here  and 
every  where  is  the  preaching  of  the  gospel. 
Preaching  In  China,  just  as  in  this  country, 

in  China,  ^^iq  method  of  preaching  needs  to  be 
adapted  to  the  character  of  the  audience.  I  at- 
tended a  Sunday  morning  service  at  Hangchow, 
where  our  missionaries  have  been  long  enough 
to  have  gathered  and  trained  a  church  of  about 
150  members.  A  native  woman  trained  at  our 
Hangchow  boarding  school  presided  at  the 
organ.  The  people  sang,  with  such  voices  as  na- 
ture had  given  them,  some  of  our  old  church 
hymns  translated  into  Chinese  to  the  old  fa- 
miliar tunes.  The  preacher  was  Mr.  Dzen,  a  na- 
tive, trained  by  our  mission  and  ordained  as 
pastor  of  the  church  about  three  years  ago.  His 
text  was,  "Enoch  walked  with  God ;  and  he  was 
not,  for  God  took  him."  The  outline  of  the  ser- 
mon,  as  given  me  by  Rev.  G.  W.  Painter,  w^as, 
(1),  The  meaning  of  walking  with  God — con- 
stant communion.  (2),  The  conditions — faith; 
love ;  oneness  of  mind ;  a  common  interest.  (3), 
The  results — we  shall  be  afraid  of  sin ;  we  shall 
fear  nothing  else  but  sin ;  we  shall  be  with  Him 
at  the  end  and  enter  with  Him  into  His  glory. 
Though  I  understood  not  a  word,  yet  my  heart 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        67 

burned  within  me  as  I  saw  in  the  faces  of  some 
of  the  listeners  the  radiance  of  the  new  life  and 
hope  which  Christ  had  brought  into  their  dark- 
ened souls;  and  I  felt  like  saying  as  I  looked 
over  the  little  church  with  its  plain  wooden 
benches  and  uncarpeted  aisles,  ^^Surely  the  Lord 
is  in  this  place ;  this  is  none  other  but  the  house 
of  God  ;  and  this  is  the  gate  of  heaven." 

To  reach  the  outside  heathen,  other  methods 
have  to  be  employed.  The  "street  chapel"  is  the 
chief  reliance  for  this  kind  of  work  in  the  cities. 
A  room  is  rented  that  opens  on  some  frequented 
street  and  furnished  with  plain  benches  and  a 
table  and,  sometimes,  a  cabinet  organ.  The  mis- 
sionary and  his  native  helper  go  to  the  chapel 
and  take  a  stand  where  they  can  be  seen  by  the 
passers-by.  The  sight  of  the  foreigner  or  the 
sound  of  the  organ  brings  in  the  crowd,  and  the 
missionary  begins  to  talk  to  any  who  will  listen. 
He  has  a  hard  problem  before  him.  I^ot  only 
are  the  ideas  he  would  convey  all  new  and 
strange  to  his  hearers,  but  there  are  no  words 
in  their  language  by  which  they  can  be  conveyed 
without  endless  explanations  and  circumlocu- 
tions. Their  lano:ua2:e,  as  well  as  their  thou2;ht, 
is  contaminated  by  centuries  of  association  with 
idolatry.  Their  idea  of  God  is  of  Shangti, 
whom  only  the  Emperor  can  worship,  and  who 


68  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

has  no  concern  for  the  affairs  of  ordinary  mor- 
tals, or  of  the  god  of  wealth,  or  the  god  of  war, 
or  of  Buddha,  whose  stone  image,  with  its  ex- 
pressions of  idiotic  self-complacency,  intended 
to  rejiresent  the  peace  of  Nirvana,  is  the  central 
figure  in  all  their  temples.  Their  ideas  of  truth 
and  morals  are  all  distorted  and  wrong.  They 
know  not  what  we  mean  by  salvation.  Some,  as 
they  come  in,  deposit  their  burdens  and  take  out 
their  pipes  and  smoke.  Others  express  audibly 
their  opinion  of  the  ^^foreign  devil,"  usually  the 
reverse  of  complimentary.  The  expressions  of 
countenance  are  various,  but  are  mostly  of  sup- 
pressed rage  or  amused  curiosity  or  hopeless 
stupidity.  Into  this  unpromising  soil  the  mis- 
sionary and  his  native  helper  throw  broadcast 
the  good  seed  of  the  kingdom.  Occasionally  one 
is  seen  whose  face  shows  that  he  is  wondering  if 
the  foreigner  really  knows  of  a  God  who  is  the 
friend  of  the  poor  and  the  oppressed  and  of  him 
that  hath  no  helper.  This  one  will  come  again, 
and  as  he  hears  over  and  over  again  the  story  of 
Christ  and  of  his  love  and  power,  some  day  he 
will  learn  the  joy  and  peace  of  believing  on  him. 
This  street-chapel  preaching  is  followed  up  by 
conversations  by  the  wayside  with  any  they  can 
get  to  listen  to  their  message,  and  by  the  distri- 
bution of  Bibles  and  Christian  books  and  tracts. 


Mission  Wokk  in  the  Far  East.         69 

And  so  the  gospel  seed  is  being  sown  beside  all 
waters,  and  the  foundations  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  are  being  laid  in  faith  and  hope,  and  little 
companies  of  believers  are  being  gathered  here 
and  there,  and  now,  after  long  years  of  working 
and  Avaiting,  the  sowers  and  the  reapers  are  be- 
ginning to  rejoice  together. 

We  are  also  trying  to  train  up  a  generation  of 
native  preachers  and  workers,  and  for  this  pur- 
pose we  have  mission  schools.  Our  Southern 
Educational     Presbyterian  Mission  has  always  oc- 

work.  cupied  conservative  ground  on  the 
question  of  schools  as  an  evangelizing  agency, 
and  the  w^ork  at  most  of  our  stations  being  com- 
paratively new,  the  demand  for  school  work  for 
the  children  of  Christians  has  been  limited.  But 
many  "Day  Schools"  are  conducted,  where  any 
children  who  will  come  and  conform  to  the  rules 
are  taught,  and  where  our  lady  missionaries  go 
and  teach  them  the  Bible  and  the  catechism  and 
gospel  songs,  and  then  follow  them  into  their 
homes.  In  this  way  they  carry  the  gospel  to  the 
Chinese  women,  many  of  whom  could  be  reached 
in  no  other  way.  For  the  training  of  larger  boys 
and  theological  students,  other  missions  have  es- 
tablished many  large  high  schools  and  colleges. 
Our  mission  as  yet  has  only  an  industrial  boys' 
school,   recently  established  at   Sinchang.      x\t 


70  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

Hangchow  we  have  a  co-operative  arrangement 
with  our  brethren  of  the  Northern  Presbyterian 
mission,  by  which  we  send  our  boys  to  their 
school  and  they  send  their  girls  to  ours.  Our 
girls'  school  at  Hangchow  has  been  in  operation 
for  thirty  years,  and  now  graduates  each  year 
a  class  who  have  had  an  eight  years'  course  in 
which  the  Bible  is  the  leading  text-book.  The 
good  that  is  being  accomplished  by  these  gradu- 
ates in  their  work  as  Bible  women  and  church 
workers,  and  as  the  makers  of  Christian  homes, 
which  are  the  greatest  of  all  needs  in  China,  is 
incalculable.  This  and  other  such  schools  also 
serve  an  indispensable  purpose  in  furnishing 
our  native  pastors  with  educated  Christian 
wives.  By  a  happy  coincidence  one  of  the  last 
year's  graduates  v;as  married  while  I  was  at 
Hangchow  to  a  young  man  wlio  was  about  to  be 
sent  out  several  hundred  miles  into  the  interior 
as  an  evangelist.  The  ceremony,  performed  by 
the  old  native  pastor,  was  interesting  as  an  illus- 
tration of  the  thoroughness  with  which  the  Chi- 
nese Christians  have  been  taught  to  do  their 
work.  It  opened  with  a  four-versed  hymn  to 
the  tune  to  which  we  sing  'The  year  of  jubilee 
is  come" ;  then  followed  a  long  prayer ;  then  a 
reading  of  all  the  passages  in  the  'Nev/  Testa- 
ment bearing  on  matrimony ;  then  a  twenty  min- 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        71 

iites'  exhortation ;  then  the  pledges ;  then  another 
hymn  dealing  very  minutely  with  the  subject  of 
reciprocal  duties;  then  another  prayer,  after 
which  the  services  closed  with  the  long  metre 
doxology  and  the  benediction.  As  they  started 
out  next  day,  leaving  the  little  circle  of  Chris- 
tian friends  they  had  been  living  among,  which 
had  gro^\Ti  large  enough  in  Hangchow  to  en- 
courage each  other  under  their  trials,  to  take  up 
their  home  and  work  in  a  community  where 
they  would  only  have  each  other  to  lean  on,  it 
was  pathetic  to  think  of  the  experiences  that  in- 
evitably awaited  them. 

Let  it  be  hoped  that  they  have  found  in  Him 
whom  they  serve  all  needed  strength,  and  that 
their  lives  have  been  blessed  by  the  mutual  love 
which  is  known  in  Chinese  wedded  life  only  by 
those  who  have  found  it  in  their  mutual  love  for 
Christ.i 


^  Through  the  kindness  of  Miss  E.  C.  Davidson  and 
Rev.  G.  W.  Painter  we  are  able  to  give  the  following 
translation  in  verse  of  part  of  the  wedding  ceremony 
referred  to  above. 

Nature  of  Obligation  as  Told  by  Pastor. 
1.  God  has  required  the  vows  they  take.     The  husband, 
tliough  the  head, 
Makes  promise  to  revere  the  wife,  nor  other  woman 
wed: 


72  Lights  ais^d  Shadows  of 

Medical  The  work  of  the  Medical  Mission- 

work.         (lyy  is  heing  much  emphasized  of  late 

years  in  China  as  a  means  of  removing  the  great 

Support  and  comfort  with  his  love,  he  doth  to  her 

engage, 
When  youth  and  beauty  yield  their  place  to  ugliness 

and  age. 

2.  She  too  takes  pledge  that  while  he  lives,  her  will  to 

his  shall  bow, 
Or  strong  or  weak,  or  rich  or  poor,  she  will  not  break 

her  vow. 
Both  promise  make,  should  God  see  fit  that  one  should 

widowed  be. 
Their    mutual    offspring    they'll    protect,    though    to 

re-wed  left  free. 

Bridal  Hymn. 

1.  To  show  that  unity  of  heart  and  virtues  was  God's 

plan. 
He  made  the  woman  from  a  rib,  drawn  from  the  side 

of  man. 
In  duties  of  the  marriage  state,  there  should  be  full 
I  accord ; 

Whilst  mutual  honor,  trust,  and  help  bring  love  as 

their  reward. 

2.  Assembled  thus  we  all  to-day  in  joyous  mood  unite, 
By  public  act  to  celebrate  God's  holy  nuptial  rite, 

In  which  this  bridegroom   and  his  bride,  made   one 

out  of  the  twain, 
In  body,  mind,  and  will  made  one,  one  household  shall 

maintain. 

3.  Since  they  together  from  henceforth  one  path  through 

life  shall  tread, 
May  reverence,  faith  and  mutual  aid,  by  mutual  love 
be  fed. 


Mission  Wokk  in  the  Far  East.        Y3 

hindrance  that  exists  in  the  hostility  of  the  peo- 
ple to  foreigners.  Chinese  education  includes 
no  knowledge  of  medicine  or  anatomy  or  sur- 
gery. Consequently  they  have  no  physicians 
of  their  own  to  relieve  the  manifold  and  pitiful 

May  God  the  Father's  constant  help  secure  them  last- 
ing peace; 

Whilst  misery,  woe,  and  carking  care  from  them  for- 
ever cease. 

4.  O    Heavenly    Father!    ever   grant    thine    unremitting 

care; 
May  clashing  discord  never  jar  this  God-united  pair: 
We  furtlier  crave  thy  guardian  care  for  ages  yet  to 

come ; 
May  their  descendants  serve  thee,  Lord;    nor  to  thy 

praise  be  dumb. 

5.  May  blessings  from  a  Father's  hand  upon  their  home 

descend, 

And  grace  profound  in  man  and  wife  in  like  propor- 
tions blend. 

Deep  reverence  for  their  Saviour-Lord,  O  Holy  Ghost, 
inspire! 

Whilst  filial  service  all  through  life  their  single  hearts 
shall  fire. 

6.  What  things  we  crave,  0  Father  dear!    wilt  not  thou 

deign  bestow? 
That  man  and  wife — unsevered  pair — to  ripe  old  age 

may  grow. 
Together  bear  the  ills  of  life,  together  share  its  joy. 
And  after  death  in  heaven's  bright  halls  together  find 

employ. 
— Translated   from    the   Chinese    hy    the   Rev.    G.   W. 
Painter. 


74  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

forms  of  disease  that  spring  from  the  conditions 
in  which  they  live.  In  this  case  the  work  of  the 
medical  missionary  ansAvers  in  part  the  same 
pnrpose  as  the  miracles  of  healing  wrought  by 
Christ  and  his  apostles.  Many  large  hosj^itals 
have  been  established,  which  bear  their  constant 
and  powerful  witness  to  the  beneficent  character 
of  Christianity,  and  become  centres  from  which 
gospel  light  is  distributed  by  those  who  have 
been  taught,  as  well  as  healed,  in  them. 

Our  mission  has  onl}^  one  hospital,  the  one  re- 
cently built  at  Soochow  at  a  cost  of  $10,000,  the 
gift  of  one  man  who  chose  the  wise  plan  of  giv- 
ing his  money  to  this  beneficence  while  he  lived, 
and  who  now  lives  to  see  and  enjoy  the  fruit  of 
his  Christian  generosity.  But  we  have  eight 
medical  missionaries  working  at  our  various  sta- 
tions with  such  facilities  as  they  can  command, 
and  who  last  year  (1897)  ministered  to  about 
40,000  patients.  I  spent  a  morning  with  Dr. 
Yenable  at  Kiashing  and  saw  the  little  room  ten 
feet  square  with  a  dirt  floor  which  he  called  his 
^^hospital,"  in  which  he  was  treating  a  poor  fel- 
low with  a  broken  thigh,  avIio  already  seemed  to 
have  the  death  pallor  on  his  face,  but  who,  by 
the  blessing  of  God  on  the  doctor's  skill,  came, 
through  with  a  good  recovery.  Mrs.  Venable 
and  her  sister.  Miss  Talbot,  spent  the  morning 


Mission  Woek  in  the  Far  East.        75 

in  the  dispensary,  applying  antiseptic  ointments 
and  bandages  to  all  kinds  of  horrible  sores  and 
nlcers  which  the  people  contract  from  drinking 
their  canal  water,  and  from  standing  bare- 
legged in  the  rice  fields ;  and  in  dispensing  medi- 
cines prescribed  by  the  doctor.  In  addition  to 
the  regular  prescriptions,  every  patient  was  fur- 
nished, for  obvious  purposes,  a  small  jar  of  sul- 
phur and  lard.  Some  of  the  cases  they  handled 
I  scarcely  had  the  nerve  to  look  at.  Yet  they 
were  doing  their  work  cheerfully  and  happily, 
finding  their  compensation  in  the  luxury  of  do- 
ing good. 

In  serious  surgical  cases  a  written  contract  is 
made  with  the  patient's  family,  in  which  they 
assume  all  responsibility  for  the  result.  It  is 
often  necessary  also  to  perform  the  operation  in 
public  to  prevent  scandalous  stories  as  to  what 
barbarous  things  the  barbarian  doctor  does  with 
his  patient.  Even  with  these  precautions  it  is 
often  possible  that  a  fatal  result  might  lead  to  a 
riot.  Dr.  Worth  told  me  that  he  once  adminis- 
tered chloroform  to  a  woman  while  a  crowd  of 
her  friends  stood  by  with  an  expression  on  their 
faces  which  plainly  meant,  '^now,  if  she  does  not 
come  back  to  life  we  will  make  short  work  with 
you."  For  a  moment  her  pulse  did  stop  beating 
and  he  thought  his  time  had  come,  but,  fortu- 


76  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

nately,  it  returned  again,  and  the  operation  was 
a  brilliant  success.  Shortly  afterwards  another 
crowd  brought  him  a  dead  woman  and  insisted 
that  he  should  try  to  restore  her  to  life.  These 
are  a  few  sample  illustrations  of  the  medical 
mission  work.  And  God  is  blessing  the  noble 
and  self-denying  labors  of  our  missionary  doc- 
tors and  of  the  women  that  assist  them,  so  that 
through  them  thousands  of  bitter  enemies  are 
being  turned  into  friends,  and  the  doors  are  be- 
ing opened  through  which  the  missionary 
preacher  can  find  his  way  to  the  ministry  of 
souls. 


Mission  Woek  in  the  Far  East.        77 


CHAPTER  VI. 
Hindrances. 

Wherever  the  church  has  been  established 
in  the  world  it  has  had  to  meet  and  overcome 
many  obstacles.  But  nowhere  else  in  the  world 
to-day  do  we  encounter  such  a  combination  of 
obstacles  as  in  China,  grooving  out  of  the  pecu- 
liar character,  the  peculiar  institutions,  and  the 
peculiar  superstitions  of  the  people. 
Character-  Physically,  the  Chinese  are  very 

much  superior  to  any  other  people  in 
the  Orient ;  and  if  not  superior,  they  are  cer- 
tainly not  inferior  intellectually.  As  between 
China  and  Japan,  there  was  no  dispute  on  that 
point  so  late  as  a  half  century  ago.  Up  to  that 
time  all  the  civilization  that  Japan  had  had  been 
derived  from  China ;  the  Chinese  sages,  Con- 
fucius and  Mencius,  because  she  had  none  of  her 
OAvn,  were  her  teachers  in  philosophy  and  mor- 
als, and  the  Chinese  classics  were  the  text-books 
in  her  schools. 

China  is  behind  Japan  to-day  because  her 
pride  and  conservatism  have  beaten  back  the 
impact  of  our  western  civilization,  which  Japan, 


78  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

having  been  long  accustomed  to  receive  from 
others,  has  admitted  and  embraced.  If  these  can 
be  broken  down  and  her  students  induced  to  ap- 
ply themselves  to  the  acquisition  of  modern 
knowledge,  it  will  not  be  long  until  their  plod- 
ding industry  will  have  placed  them  in  the  front 
rank  among  the  scholars  of  the  world.  In  social 
morality  and  reliability,  they  compare  favorably 
with  other  Orientals,  and  though  much  addicted 
to  lying,  as  all  Orientals  are,  the  difference  be- 
tween them  and  some  Americans  in  that  respect 
is  not  greater  than  it  should  be,  considering  that 
China  is  heathen  and  America  is  supposed  to  be 
a  Christian  land.  Many  of  their  characteristic 
traits  are  those  which,  under  the  regenerating 
influence  of  Christianity,  would  go  into  the 
make-up  of  a  great  and  noble  people.  They  are 
sober-minded,  industrious,  enterprising,  peace- 
able, and  law-abiding.  But  they  have  two  out- 
standing traits  which,  until  they  are  greatly 
modified  in  some  way,  will  prevent  them  from 
becoming  a  great  and  noble  people,  and  cause 
them  to  be  in  the  future  as  they  have  been  in 
the  past,  the  most  difficult  of  all  people  to  reach 
with  the  gospel.  These  are  their  monumental 
and  unparalleled  conceit  and  their  preposterous 
and  paralyzing  conservatism.  If  there  is  more 
hoj^e  of  a  fool  than  of  one  wise  in  his  o^vn  con- 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        Y9 

ceit,  what  hope  is  there  of  a  nation  of  people 
who  call  their  country  ^The  Great,  Pure  King- 
dom/' "The  Flowery  Kingdom/'  'The  Celes- 
tial Empire" ;  who  look  on  themselves  and  all 
their  belongings  as  absolutely  perfect,  and  on 
the  most  refined  and  cultivated  westerner  that 
comes  to  them  as  a  poor,  ignorant  barbarian 
from  the  far-off  fringes  of  the  world,  worthy 
onlv  of  their  enlightened  scorn  ? 

Their  conservatism  has  its  roots  in  their  an- 
cestor worship,  which  leads  them  to  resent  any 
suggestion  of  improvement  from  any  quarter  as 
an  insult  to  these  ancestors.  The  way  it  works 
will  appear  from  the  following  illustration : 
Old  and  New  The  first  thing  that  one,  going 
Shanghai.;  fpom  this  direction,  sees  of  China  is 
the  city  of  ISTew  Shanghai.  It  is  a  fine,  modern 
city,  with  nimierous  factories,  run  by  modern 
machinery  and  lighted  by  electricity.  A  wdde 
boulevard  on  the  river  front  is  lined  with  a  mag- 
nificent row  of  three  and  four-story  business 
houses,  of  brick  and  stone.  There  are  several 
squares  of  two  and  three-story  brick  flats  for  resi- 
dences, furnished  with  water  and  gas  and  all 
modern  conveniences.  There  is  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  pleasure  gardens,  with  its  green 
turf  and  foliage  plants  and  flowers  and  orna- 
mental trees,  and  red  chairs  and  settees,  where 


80  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

the  tired  merchants  come  of  evenings  and  sit  and 
smoke,  and  drink  in  the  fresh  ocean  breeze ;  and 
graveled  walks,  where  the  yonng  people  prome- 
nade and  tell  their  story  of  love  and  adventure, 
to  the  accompaniment  of  moonlight  and  sweet 
mnsic. 

One  would  suppose  that  all  these  desirable 
things  of  our  western  civilization,  carried  out 
there  and  put  right  before  the  eyes  of  the  Chi- 
nese, would  excite  their  admiration  and  awaken 
in  them  a  desire  to  have  the  same  things.  Let 
us  see.  Passing  through  a  gate  in  the  wall  that 
separates  Xew  Shanghai  from  Old  Shanghai, 
we  find  ourselves  in  a  typical  Chinese  city,  said 
to  make  about  the  least  pretension  to  decency 
and  cleanliness  of  any  city  in  the  Empire.  Ask 
the  people  of  Old  Shanghai  if  they  would  not 
like  to  have  clean  streets,  and  houses  with  grass 
plots  around  them,  and  marble-fronted  stores 
and  a  pleasure  garden.  They  answer,  ^'IN'o,  our 
ancestors  for  thousands  of  years  have  dispensed 
with  such  things,  and  shall  we  set  ourselves  up 
as  wiser  and  better  than  they  ?"  I  was  told  that 
the  municipality  of  I^ew  Shanghai  did  offer  to 
extend  its  waterworks,  free  of  charge,  to  Old 
Shanghai,  in  the  hope  of  thereby  preventing  the 
pestilences  that  originate  in  the  foulness  of  its 
streets  and  canals.     They  responded  by  sending 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        81 

a  committee  to  investigate  the  water  that  was 
offered  them.  The  committee  went  back  and  re- 
ported that  they  did  not  like  it.  "It  has  no  body 
to  it,"  they  said,  "like  the  water  of  our  canals. 
It  has  neither  taste  nor  smell."  Whether  this 
story  be  true  or  apocryphal,  it  exactly  illustrates 
the  attitude  of  China,  not  only  to  clean  water 
and  western  comforts  and  conveniences,  but  to 
the  western  man  himself  and  every  thing  he 
brings  with  him,  Christianity  not  excepted. 
National  The  proccss  of  national  evolution 

evolution,  j^^^g  i^^^  ^  long  time  to  work  itself  out 
in  China  along  the  lines  projected  by  the  an- 
cient fathers,  and  the  result  is  as  though  the 
"God  of  this  world"  had  been  the  presiding 
genius  of  it,  and  had  been  given  unlimited  op- 
portunity to  do  his  worst  in  the  way  of  making 
China  hopelessly  inaccessible  to  the  gospel. 

In  government  there  has  been  evolved  a  patri- 
archal despotism,  in  which  "the  beautiful  senti- 
ment of  filial  piety"  binds  all  the  people  to  ab- 
ject and  unquestioning  submission  to  "the  pow- 
ers that  be,"  from  the  Emperor  down  to  the 
father  of  the  family,  the  elder  brother  and  the 
mother-in-law. 

The  governors  of  provinces  and  the  magis- 
trates of  cities  and  to^^Tis  are  taken  from  an  of- 
ficial class  composed  of  those  who  have  passed  a 


82  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

series  of  examinations  in  the  Confucian  classics. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  young  men  of 
China  go  up  every  year  to  the  provincial  capit- 
als to  compete  for  the  degree  that  puts  them  in 
the  line  of  promotion.  These  are  the  so-called 
^'Literati/'  whose  education  we  might  suppose 
would  make  them  the  friends  of  light  and  pro- 
gress. But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  only  fortifies 
them  in  their  lofty  scorn  of  anything  more  mod- 
ern than  Confucius.  And  besides,  being  either 
officials  or  expectant  officials,  all  their  personal 
hopes  and  interests  are  bound  up  in  the  system 
that  now  exists,  and  so  they  present  a  solid  front 
of  opposition  to  anything  in  the  shape  of  reform 
or  change.  The  few  who,  by  luck,  or  influence 
or  bribery,  reach  the  coveted  goal  of  office  re- 
ceive only  nominal  salaries  from  the  govern- 
ment, which  they  are  expected  to  supplement  by 
such  means  as  opportunity  may  throw  in  their 
way.  This  opportunity  they  find  in  pilfering 
the  public  revenues  that  pass  through  their 
hands,  in  exacting  bribes  from  all  litigants,  and 
in  torturing  accused  criminals  until  the  last  pos- 
sible cash  has  been  extracted  from  them  as  the 
price  of  their  release.  If  they  should  become 
Christians,  they  would  have  to  give  up  their 
handsome  incomes  from  these  wages  of  iniquity. 
They  would  also  have  to  resign  their  offices,  be- 


^ 


Mission  Woek  in  the  Far  East.        83 

cause  their  official  duties  require  them  to  engage 
in  idolatrous  rites  and  ceremonies.  Ko  wonder 
then  that  the  gospel  finds  in  the  officials  and 
literati  of  China  its  bitterest  opponents,  and 
any  one  can  see  that  if  Satanic  inspiration  had 
been  invoked  to  devise  an  official  system  that 
would  present  the  greatest  possible  obstacle  to 
our  Christian  missions,  he  could  not  improve 
upon  the  one  that  now  exists. 

In  the  industrial  sphere  there  has  been  devel- 
oped a  guild  system  that  holds  all  trades  and 
professions  in  an  iron  grip.  Every  merchant  or 
artisan  must  belong  to  the  guild,  or  be  boycotted. 
Even  the  beggars  and  thieves  have  guilds,  the 
initiation  fee  to  the  beggars'  guild  in  Soochow 
being  $30  (Mexican).  And  if  anyone  attempts 
to  practice  this  honored  profession  without  be- 
ing a  member  of  the  guild,  a  committee  is  ap- 
pointed, who  take  their  stand  on  a  bridge  in  the 
dusk  of  the  evening  and,  as  the  offender  passes 
by,  a  knock  on  the  head  and  a  toss  into  tliQ  canal 
bring  his  career  to  a  speedy  and  inglorious  ter- 
mination. The  guilds  as  such  are  taxed  to  sup- 
port the  temples  and  the  idol  processions.  When 
one  becomes  a  Christian,  he  will  no  longer  wish 
to  help  support  idolatry.  He  must  therefore 
break  with  the  guild  and  become  an  industrial 
outcast.     If  we  had  such  a  system  to  contend 


84  Lights  and  S^hadows  of 

with  in  this  country,  it  would  certainly  dimin- 
ish the  number  of  our  professed  converts,  even 
though  it  miglit  improve  their  quality.      The 
religions    of    China  ai^e  said  to  be 

Kellglons.  '^      ^ 

Buddhism,  Tauism,  and  Confucian- 
ism in  the  form  of  ancestral  worship.  But  these 
have  long  been  boiling  in  a  pot  together  until 
they  have  lost  their  distinctive  characteristics, 
and  the  people  have  them  hopelessly  confused. 
I  saw  at  Shanghai  a  Tauist  priest  conducting 
Confucian  worship  in  a  Buddhist  temple.  The 
residuum  from  the  old  religions  is  a  system  of 
demon  worship,  which  is  a  veritable  reign  of  ter- 
ror, and  is  the  source  of  untold  misery  as  well  as 
of  mental  and  spiritual  degradation.  The  peo- 
ple believe  that  earth  and  air  and  water  are 
filled  with  malignant  spirits  that  pursue  them 
night  and  day,  and  the  effort  to  propitiate  them, 
or  to  cajole  them,  or  to  dodge  them,  is  the  aim 
of  nine-tenths  of  their  religious  observances. 
Departed  ancestors  are  kept  in  good  humor  by 
burning  paper  money  and  clothes  and  horses 
and  other  conveniences  at  their  tombs,  which, 
being  etherealized  in  smoke,  become  available 
for  use  in  the  spirit  world.  The  odor  of  savory 
viands  set  on  tables  around  their  tombs  is  also 
thought  to  be  necessary  for  their  nourishment 
and   gratifying   to   their   spiritual    olfactories. 


^[issiON  Work  in  the  Far  East.        85 

The  spirits  of  wind  and  water  are  fortunately 
supposed  to  be  able  to  travel  only  in  straight 
lines.  Hence  you  will  see  rectangular  brick  pil- 
lars built  opposite  a  man's  front  gate,  a  little 
larger  than  the  opening.  The  spirits  coming  in 
that  direction  butt  against  this  pillar  and  are 
thrown  to  the  ground.  When  they  get  up  and 
start  again,  they  must  still  go  in  a  straight  line, 
and  so  their  entrance  into  the  premises  is  pre- 
vented. Every  tiled  roof  has  an  upward  curve 
at  each  corner.  This  is  to  give  any  vagrant 
spirit  who  might  be  sliding  down  the  comb  of 
the  roof  a  slant  upward  as  he  leaves  it,  so  that  he 
will  not  come  gliding  through  the  door  or  win- 
dow of  some  adjoining  house.  Fear  of  the  con- 
sequences wliich  may  come  to  them  through  the 
ill  will  of  these  ancestral  and  other  spirits  if  the 
honors  due  them  are  in  any  way  neglected,  a 
fear  that  often  abides  long  after  the  mind  has 
been  emancipated  from  belief  in  them,  is  one  of 
the  hardest  things  to  be  overcome  with  those 
who  are  brought  to  consider  the  claims  of  the 
gospel. 

Then  there  is  the  gambling  curse,  almost  uni- 
versally prevalent,  and  the  opium  curse,  the 
smell  of  which  is  in  all  the  air  and  the  pallor  of 
it  on  millions  of  faces,  and  many  other  things 
of  which  there  is  no  more  time  to  speak,  which. 


86  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

taken  all  together,  make  up  a  situation  wliich 
would  seem  to  render  the  evangelization  of 
"China  an  utterly  impracticable  and  hopeless  un- 
dertaking. It  is  no  wonder  that  men  of  the 
world,  looking  at  it  from  their  worldly  stand- 
point, have  so  regarded  it,  and  have  told  us  that 
the  money  and  the  lives  of  the  men  and  women 
devoted  to  this  work  are  being  simply  thrown 
away.  Are  they  ?  Let  us  see. 
^     ,^  Eobert  Morrison  went  as  the  first 

Results. 

Protestant  missionary  to  China  in 
1807.  When  he  died,  in  1834,  he  had  only  a 
half-dozen  professed  converts  to  show  as  the  re- 
sult of  his  life  work.  And  some,  who  forgot 
that  foundations  have  to  be  laid  before  a  build- 
ing can  be  erected,  said  that  he  had  thrown  his 
life  away.  But  to-day  there  is  a  Protestant 
church  in  China  with  about  80,000  communing 
members,  more  than  half  of  whom  have  been 
added  in  the  last  eight  years,  and  five-sixths  of 
them  in  the  last  twenty  years.  The  rate  of  pro- 
gress steadily  increases  as  the  number  of  trained 
natives  increases  who  are  prepared  to  preach 
the  gospel  to  their  o\vn  people.  The  number  is 
already  great  enough  to  show  that  human  impos- 
sibilities and  insurmountable  obstacles  do  not 
count  as  such  when  they  come  into  collision  with 
the  power  of  God  in  the  gospel. 


Mission  Woek  in  the  Far  East.         SY 
But,  looking  to  the  future  of  the 

Character  '  " 

of  native       church  in  China,  the  most  important 
question    is    not    how   many    native 
Christians  are  there,  but  what  kind  of  Christians 
are  they  ? 

There  are  some  of  all  classes,  but  most  of 
them  are  of  the  poorer  classes,  as  was  the  case 
with  the  church  which  Christ  and  the  apostles 
established.  Some  have  come  in  from  wrong 
motives,  hoping  for  employment,  or  the  foreign- 
ers' help  in  law-suits,  or  some  material  advan- 
tage. This  cannot  be  always  prevented,  al- 
though the  greatest  possible  pains  are  taken  to 
prevent  it.  The  great  majority  of  them,  how- 
ever, have  come  in  expecting  on  the  worldly  side 
just  what  they  found — disinheritance,  boycot- 
ting, abandonment  of  family  and  friends,  and 
a  thousand  forms  of  persecution.  Many  are  as 
to  knowledge  mere  babes  in  Christ.  In  symme- 
try of  Christian  character  we  cannot  rightly  ex- 
pect of  them  what  we  do  of  tliose  who  have  been 
born  in  the  midst  of  Christian  environments  and 
reared  in  Christian  homes.  But  I  bear  witness 
of  what  I  saw  among  them,  that  in  simple  child- 
like faith,  in  zeal  for  the  cause  they  have  es- 
poused and  in  the  patient  endurance  of  persecu- 
tion many  of  them  have  been,  and  are  now,  show- 
ing the  spirit  of  the  Christians  of  apostolic  days. 


$8  Lights  and  Shadows  oV 

In  our  little  cliurcli  at  Soocliow  there  is  a  na- 
tive preacher  by  the  name  of  Mr.  Leu.  When 
Dr.  Davis  was  negotiating  for  the  land  on  which 
our  hospital  is  built,  Mr.  Leu  oifered  his  ser- 
vices to  act  as  native  "middleman' '  in  the  pur- 
chase. The  local  magistrate  is  bitterly  opposed 
to  the  foreigners  acquiring  property,  and  in  a 
similar  transaction  some  years  ago  the  magis- 
trate in  charge  revenged  himself  on  the  native 
who  took  part  in  it  by  arresting  him  on  some 
false  accusation  and  throwing  him  into  prison, 
where  he  lay  for  several  years.  This  was  the 
probable  fate  of  Mr.  Leu.  But  he  did  not  hesitate 
on  t'hat  account.  Tie  went  out  and  found  an  old 
man  and  initiated  him  into  the  care  of  his  home, 
so  that  the  old  man  could  manage  things  for  him 
during  the  indefinite  time  that  he  expected  to  lie 
in  prison.  lie  did  not  seem  to  be  conscious  that 
he  was  doing  anything  heroic.  But,  knowing  as 
he  did  the  barbarities  of  a  Chinese  prison,  it 
seems  to  me  that  in  this  matter  this  man  was  a 
Christian  hero,  of  the  very  same  spirit  with  him 
who  said  in  the  olden  time,  '^I  am  ready,  not  to 
be  bound  only,  but  also  to  die  at  Jerusalem,  for 
the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus." 

I  am  thankful  to  say  that  the  land  for  the 
hospital  was  secured,  and,  by  the  kind  provi- 
dence of  God,  Mr.  Leu  was  saved  from  the  fate 


Mission  Wokk  in  tii  k  Faii  East.        89 

wliicli  he  and  liis  friends  anticipated  for  liini. 
And  this  was  the  man  who  stood  np  in  the  con- 
gregation in  Soochow  one  Snnday  morning,  in 
last  October,  and  responded  to  my  address,  ask- 
ing me  to  carry  back  to  the  home  church  a  mes- 
sage of  loye  and  gratitude  from  him  and  his  peo- 
ple for  sending  them  the  gospel,  and  to  ask  your 
prayers,  ^'not,"  he  said,  "that  we  may  not.  haye 
to  suffer  persecution,  for  we  read  in  this  Bible 
that  those  who  will  liye  godly  in  Christ  Jesus 
must  suffer  persecution,  but  that  God  will  al- 
ways be  with  us  in  future  as  lie  has  been  in  the 
past,  and  giye  us  His  grace  to  make  us  faithful 
unto  death.'' 

For  my  part,  I  felt  like  sitting  at  that  dis- 
ciple's feet,  that  I  might  learn  more  of  the  spirit 
of  Christ.  And  this  is  not  a  solitary  case,  but 
there  are  many  like  him  anions:  the  Christians 
of  China  who  are  ready  any  hour  to  giye  the  su- 
preme test  of  their  fidelity  and  loye.  And  we 
haye  now  reached  a  stage  in  our  work  when  we 
are  no  longer  compelled  as  Judson  was  when 
asked  what  was  the  prospect  in  Burmah,  to  point 
to  the  Bible  and  say,  "Bright  as  the  promises  of 
God."  We  can  point  to  tlie  promises,  and  also 
to  the  actual  yisible  results,  so  large  and  so  rap- 
idly increasing  in  quantity,  and  some  of  them 
so  magnificent  in  quality,  and  say,  "We  are  not 


90  Lights  and  Shadows  or* 

ashamed  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  for  it  is  the 
power  of  God  unto  salvation" — even  in  China. 
The  power  of  God  will  not  fail  ns.  lie  is  in 
China  to-day  working  mightier  miracles  than 
that  by  which  the  walls  of  Jericho  were  thrown 
down.  The  native  Christians  there  will  not  fail 
ns.  They  have  already  been  tried  in  the  fire  and 
their  faith  found  to  be  of  the  quality  that  is  im- 
perishable. The  Protestant  missionaries  there 
will  not  fail  us.  The  church  has  never  had  a 
nobler  or  more  self-denying  band  of  workers 
than  they  are.  The  only  cloud  on  the  horizon  is 
that  the  church  at  home  seems  at  present  unwill- 
ing to  give  them  the  support  and  re-enforce- 
ment they  need  in  the  ever-widening  work  that 
opens  up  before  them. 


Mission  Woek  in  the  Far  East.        91 


CHAPTEK  VII. 

The  Countey  and  People  of  Koeea. 

In  the  month  of  October,  1897,  I  watched  a 
Korean  sunset  from  the  top  of  a  hill  near  the  vil- 
lage of  Knnsan,  on  the  southwestern  coast.  The 
sombre  effect  of  the  brown  rocks  of  the  coast 
cliffs  and  of  the  little  islands  in  the  bay,  and  of 
the  brown  grass  on  the  hills,  was  only  intensified 
by  the  green  of  a  few  scattering,  scrubby  pines. 
The  golden  clouds  and  the  scarlet  waters  were  as 
still  as  if  they  had  been  painted  on  a  canvas. 
There  was  hardly  a  breath  of  movement  in  the 
air,  and  the  only  things  in  all  the  landscape  that 
seemed  possessed  of  waking  life  were  myself 
and  a  few  geese  and  ducks  that  were  floating 
lazily  out  on  the  bosom  of  the  ebbing  tide. 

The  scene  was  typical  of  that  far-away  little 
kingdom  which  we  insist  on  calling  Korea,  but 
whicli  the  natives  call  Choson, — the  ^Tand  of 
the  Morning  Calm."  It  was  indeed  a  land  of 
"calm,"  of  industrial,  social,  political,  religious, 
and  every  other  kind  of  calm,  from  immemorial 
days  of  old  until  about  twenty-five  years  ago, 
when  its  quietude  began  to  be  disturbed  by  visi- 


92  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

tors  from  the  West^  firing  salutes  from  their  bat- 
tleships in  its  harbors  and  asking  the  privilege 
of  extending  to  it  the  benefits  of  their  protection 
and  trade.  In  recent  years  it  has  become  the 
passive  but  interested  subject  of  much  interest- 
ing diplomacy  among  these  visitors,  especially 
those  representing  Eussia  and  England.  Rus- 
sia's interest  was  to  dominate  Korea,  not  for  the 
sake  of  any  immediate  value  to  her  of  the  trade 
and  resources  of  the  country,  but  with  the  view 
of  possessing  herself  of  one  of  the  fine  harbors, 
notably  that  of  Port  LazarefP,  on  the  eastern 
coast,  both  as  the  long-coveted  outlet  for  her 
trans-Siberian  trade,  and  as  a  place  where  she 
might  gradually  assemble  a  navy  that  would  en- 
able her  to  cope  with  England  in  the  waters  of 
the  Ear  East.  England's  interest  was  to  frus- 
trate the  designs  of  Russia.  Now  that  Russia 
has  secured  her  outlet  in  Port  Arthur  on  the 
China  coast,  it  is  noticeable  tliat  she  is  not  inter- 
esting herself  in  Korea  to  the  same  extent  as  for- 
merly. That  she  may  cease  to  do  so  entirely  is 
a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished,  for  many 
reasons,  but  especially  in  the  interest  of  our 
Protestant  missionary  work.  Our  country  has 
as  yet  had  no  political  interests  in  Korea  at  all 
and  has  been  concerned  in  none  of  her  recent  po- 
litical troubles.     Eor  this  reason  our  mission- 


Mission  Woek  in  the  Fae  East.        93 

aries  are  more  welcome  there  than  those  of  any 
other  conntry. 

The  Korean  peninsula  stretches  from  the 
southern  boundary  of  Manchuria  and  the  north- 
east boundary  of  China  southward,  between  the 
Geography  thirty-third  and  forty-fourth  degrees 
and  climate,  ^f  north  latitude.  It  is  traversed 
through  its  whole  length  by  a  range  of  moun- 
tains that  sends  off  frequent  spurs  in  both  direc- 
tions to  the  sea.  These  geographical  conditions 
give  it  a  climate  which,  excepting  the  rainy  sea- 
son, which  lasts  about  two  months  in  summer,  is 
simply  superb.  The  scenery  is  picturesque  and 
the  valleys  are  fertile,  and  both  would  be  more 
so  but  for  the  utter  denudation  of  the  hills  by  the 
peasants  in  search  of  fuel,  which  is  in  more 
senses  than  one  '^the  burning  question"  in  all  the 
Orient.  In  the  north  there  is  said  to  be  some 
fine  timbered  lands,  but  in  the  south,  where  I 
travelled,  there  is  only  an  occasional  patch  of 
scrubby  pines,  reserved  by  the  government,  and 
twisted  into  every  conceivable  shape  by  the 
winds. 

As  in  China,  the  hills  are  all  cemeteries, 
though  not  so  thickly  populated  with  the  dead  as 
the  hills  of  China.  High  up  on  their  sides  and 
tops  are  tlie  well-kept  grassy  mounds,  the  graves 
of  the  well-to-do,   generally  marked  by   stone 


94  LicjiiTS  AND  Shadows  of 

slabs,  and  regularly  visited  and  put  in  order  once 
a  year. 

Lower  dowTi  are  the  nnburied  bodies  of  the 
peasants,  wrapped  in  coffins  of  rice  straw,  and  in 
the  case  of  children,  mounted  on  sticks  or  swung 
from  the  boughs  of  trees  to  keep  them  from  be- 
ing eaten  by  the  foxes.  This  objectionable  cus- 
tom springs,  2:)erhaps,  not  so  much  from  indiffer- 
ence to  the  bodies  of  their  dead  as  from  the  fear 
that  their  burial  before  the  ^^roper  place  had 
been  selected  by  the  geomancer  would  bring  dis- 
aster to  the  family. 

The  staple  joroductions  are  rice  and  beans  and 
millet,  as  condiments  to  wdiicli  a  variety  of  sal- 
ads, turnips,  and  red  pepper  are  grown.  I  found 
the  native  food  uneatable,  for  reasons  both  of 
taste  and  of  sentiment.  Unless  by  special  order, 
the  rice  and  beans  are  cooked  together  and  then 
seasoned  with  pepper  until  the  whole  mixture 
is  red.  A  flavor  as  of  ancient  dish  water  exhales 
from  the  mixture  when  hot.  If  meat  is  served, 
one  knows  not  whether  it  was  killed  or  died  a 
natural  death.  Most  likely  the  latter,  but  if 
killed,  the  method  is  usually  by  strangling,  so 
as  not  to  lose  the  weight  of  the  blood.  One  can 
venture  on  the  fish,  because  they  have  no  blood, 
and  we  ourselves  have  learned  no  better  as  yet 
than  to  let  the  fish  we  eat  die  a  natural  death. 


Mission  Work  ix  tjie  Far  East.         95 

The  chief  reliance  of  the  missionary  and  trav- 
eller in  Korea  for  food  for  some  time  to  come 
mnst  be  on  canned  goods  from  San  Francisco. 

With  somewhat  better  conditions  of  travel  and 
forage,  Korea  wonld  be  the  sportsman's  para- 

^  ^  disc.     In  the  antnmn  the  grassy  hills 

are  thick  with  pheasants,  and  the  rice 
fields  with  ducks  and  geese.  Small  deer  and 
leopards  are  plentiful  in  many  places,  and  tigers 
scarcely  inferior  to  the  Koyal  Bengal  make 
themselves  altogether  too  familiar  around  some 
of  the  villages  for  the  comfort  of  the  Koreans, 
who  are  not  supplied  with  the  proper  munitions 
of  war  to  cope  with  them.  Some  of  the  natives 
have  old  match-lock  rifles  with  which  they  shoot 
ducks  and  geese  sitting,  provided  they  will  sit 
long  enough  after  the  native  gets  a  bead  on  them 
for  the  old  string  fuse  to  burn  up  to  the  powder 
in  the  flash  pan.  With  such  weapons  they  can- 
not aspire  to  shoot  game  on  the  wing,  but  they 
express  their  sportsman's  instinct  by  shouts  of 
delight  when  they  see  a  foreigner  bring  down  a 
flying  goose  with  a  breech-loader. 

If  one  wishes  to  describe  the  conditions  of 
interior  travel  in  Korea  he  may  use  any  de- 
rogatory   word    our    language    con- 

Travel.  &  ./  o       o 

tains,  or  any  combination  of  them, 
without   the   slightest   danger   of  exaggeration. 


96  Lights  and  Shadows  ov 

There  are  no  made  roads  and  no  canals  to 
take  the  pLace  of  them  as  in  China.  Short 
journeys  may  be  made  in  comfort  in  a  sedan 
chair.  Bnt  for  long  jonrneys,  requiring  much 
weight  and  bnlk  of  Inggage,  the  favorite  in- 
strnment  of  transportation  is  that  unique,  nat- 
ural phenomenon,  the  Korean  pony.  This  ani- 
mal possesses  the  general  contour  of  a  horse,  but 
in  other  respects  he  is  peculiar,  and  peculiar  to 
Korea.  He  is  very  small,  but  is  a  marvel  of 
strength  and  endurance.  His  face  is  very  much 
dished,  and  his  face  expresses  his  character, 
which  attains  perhaps  the  maximum  of  com- 
bined obstinacy  and  ferocity  possible  to  horse 
flesh,  ^ot  wishing  to  do  him  injustice,  I  have 
made  comparison  with  the  observations  of  other 
travellers  and  find  them  substantially  the  same 
as  my  own.  Mrs.  Bishop  pronounces  him  to 
be  ^^among  the  most  salient  features  of  Korea," 
and  says  that,  though  she  dearly  loved  horses, 
she  was  not  able  in  a  whole  month  to  establish 
any  friendly  relations  with  the  one  she  rode. 
Mr.  Gale,  in  his  ''Korean  Sketches,"  tells  us 
that  he  exists  in  three  stages  of  development. 
He  grows  wild  on  a  certain  island,  where  a  num- 
ber of  them  are  lassoed  each  year  and  taken  to 
the  royal  stables.  Here  he  spends  his  palmy 
days.    When  he  begins  to  look  shaggy  and  sheepy 


,  IB 

M*  '"^'  '"^HPI^^^^^^Hf 

r   v 

.'.  ~ 

^^ 

Mission  Work  ix  ttie  Far  East.        97 

from  age  he  is  taken  out  and  used  as  a  pack 
pony  for  the  government.  This  is  the  second 
stage,  during  which  he  develops  ringbone,  raw- 
back,  stringhalt,  spavin  and  heaves.  Then  he 
is  purchased  by  a  dealer,  who  keeps  him  to  hire 
to  foreigners.  But  through  all  these  stages  his 
spirit  remains  unbroken,  and  while  he  lives  he 
will  yield  the  palm  to  no  other  living  horse  in 
the  weight  he  will  carry  and  the  distance  he  will 
travel  in  a  day.  My  experience  of  him  was  on  a 
journey  of  175  miles  from  Seoiil  to  Chunju,  in 
company  with  ^Ir.  Eugene  Bell,  of  our  mission, 
which  we  accomplished  in  five  days.  The  im- 
pedimenta for  this  journey  for  each  pony  were 
two  good  boxes  of  provisions  and  utensils,  a  va- 
lise, a  folding  cot,  a  comfort,  a  pillow  and  blan- 
ket, besides  the  rider.  Moimted  on  them,  on  top 
of  all  this  luggage,  with  no  support  for  back  or 
feet  or  hands,  our  appearance  was  no  less  pictur- 
esque than  our  situation  was  helpless  and  un- 
comfortable. But  I  soon  learned  the  secret  of 
this  mode  of  travel.  It  is  to  ride  until  your  back 
is  so  tired  you  cannot  possibly  endure  it  longer ; 
then  walk  till  you  are  so  wearied  that  any  change 
will  be  a  relief ;  then  mount  your  pony  again.  I 
found  also  that  in  crossing  streams  on  arched 
dirt  bridges  two  feet  wide,  walking  was  prefer- 
able to  riding,  and  also  when  the  road  was  the 


98  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

narrow  bank  between  two  flooded  rice  fi.elds. 
Onr  resting  place  at  night  was  the  Korean  inn, 
if  resting  place  it  conld  be  called.  Its  guest  room 
opens  on  the  enclosed  back  yard  of  the  premises, 
the  rendezvous  of  our  ponies  and  of  the  land- 
lord's dogs  and  pigs  and  chickens,  and  furnished 
with  earthenware  jars,  the  receptacle  of  what- 
ever can  be  made  available  to  improve  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  the  rice  fields.  The  room  is  nine 
feet  by  six,  with  a  raised  floor  heated  hot  by  a 
flue  under  it,  and  no  opening  except  the  small 
door  by  which  we  enter.  Our  alternative  was 
to  open  the  door  to  the  incursion  of  crawling 
and  hopping  parasites  from  without,  or  to  close 
it  and  take  our  chances  with  the  stifling  air 
within.  We  unwisely  chose  the  latter,  with  the 
result  that,  after  a  brief  nap,  I  awoke  in  a  night- 
mare, dreaming  that  I  was  buried  alive.  We 
then  tried  it  with  the  door  open,  and  were  weary 
enough  to  bid  defiance  to  the  animal  creation, 
large  or  small,  to  disturb  our  slumbers.  But 
just  then  there  appeared  on  the  scene  a  Budd- 
hist monk  with  his  band  of  helpers,  trying  to 
exorcise  a  demon  from  a  neighboring  house 
where  there  was  small-pox,  beating  gongs  and 
blowing  something  that  sounded  like  a  Scotch 
bagpipe,  and  singing  tunes,  the  like  of  which 
I  never  heard  before,  and  hoped  I  might  never 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.        99 

hear  again.  This  benevolent  enterprise  was  kept 
np  till  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  with  what 
success  we  never  learned,  as  we  rose  at  half-past 
fonr  and  proceeded  on  our  journey.  I  indulged 
the  hope  on  starting  that  after  a  day  or  two  we 
would  toughen  to  our  experiences  and  find  them 
less  intolerable.  This  might  have  been  the  case, 
but  for  the  development  of  a  Korean  carbuncle 
on  the  hip  joint.  As  it  was,  at  the  end  of  the 
journey  I  was  more  than  satisfied  to  be  simply 
alive.  Such  is  the  romance  and  luxury  of  mis- 
sionary itinerating  in  Korea.  And  at  present 
much  the  larger  part  of  male  missionary  life 
there  is  itinerating. 

The  port  of  entry  to  Korea  from  the  west  is 
Chemulpo,  in  whose  so-called  harbor  the  tide 
cities  and       riscs  froui  twcuty-five  to  forty  feet. 

vniages.  When  the  tide  recedes,  the  bottom 
for  a  mile  out  is  left  entirely  bared,  leaving 
junks  and  small  steamers  resting  on  the  ooze 
till  another  tide  comes  in  to  float  them.  Fifty- 
six  miles  from  Chemulpo  up  the  river  Han,  and 
three  miles  from  the  river,  lies  Seolil,  the  capi- 
tal of  the  country. 

It  was  up  this  stretch  of  river  that,  in  1872, 
Commodore  Rogers  and  Capt.  Schley  and  En- 
sign Mitchell  Chester,  now  captain  of  ^he  gun- 
boat Cincinnati,  attempted  to  navigate  the  old 


100  Lights  and  Sjiadows  of 

Monocacy,  the  ^'l^oah's  Ark'^  of  our  Asiatic 
squadron,  to  avenge  the  murder  of  the  crew  of 
an  American  schooner  that  was  wrecked  on  the 
northwestern  coast.  They  had  the  usual  experi- 
ence of  those  who  attempt  this  journey,  whether 
by  gunboat,  steam  launch,  or  junk,  of  finding 
themselves  stuck  in  the  mud  a  few  miles  up  the 
river,  and  they  had  to  take  to  the  land  to  ac- 
complish their  purj)ose.  This  they  did,  with  dif- 
ficulty however,  for  the  Koreans  fought  desper- 
ately from  behind  their  rock  forts  on  the  moun- 
tain cliffs.  But  their  string-fuse  jmgals  were 
too  long  in  going  off,  and  their  old  Chinese  brass 
cannon  all  went  off  at  once,  leaving  them  help- 
less at  the  hands  of  the  Americans,  who  shot  and 
bayonetted  toc^ether  about  six  hundred  of  them. 
The  American  loss  was  Lieut.  McKee  and  two 
marines  killed,  and  eight  wounded.  Except  in 
the  display  of  American  pluck  it  was  an  un- 
worthy episode,  which  the  Koreans  seem  hap- 
pily to  have  forgotten. 

In  respect  of  population,  Seoill  ranks  as  one 
of  the  great  cities  of  the  Far  East,  containing 
about  250,000  inhabitants.  But  in  any  other 
respect  than  population  it  hardly  deserves  the 
name  of  a  city  at  all.  It  has  no  arts  nor  manu- 
factures worth  speaking  of.  As  to  trade,  Mrs. 
Bishop  says  truly  that  '^it  is  the  commercial 


Mission  Woek  in  the  Far  East.      101 

centre  of  a  people  whose  ideas  of  commerce  are 
limited  to  huckstering  transactions."  It  has  no 
two-storied  houses,  except  a  few  built  by  foreign- 
ers, even  the  royal  palaces  being  of  but  one  story. 
A  few  of  the  houses  are  built  of  wood,  and  cov- 
ered with  tiles,  but  the  vast  majority  of  them 
are  simply  mud  huts  with  three  small  rooms, 
covered  with  thatched  straw.  Korea  is  a  coun- 
try of  villages,  however,  rather  than  of  large 
cities,  and  every  village  is  like  every  other  vil- 
lage, a  collection  of  these  mud  huts,  scattered 
all  over  the  country  at  an  average  distance  of 
from  three  to  five  miles. 

The  streets  of  cities  and  villages  alike  are  nar- 
row alleys  with  open  gutters  on  either  side,  filled 
with  malodorous  sewage,  in  which  naked  chil- 
dren play  as  though  they  were  clear  mountain 
streams.  It  must  be  said  for  the  city  of  Seoiil, 
however,  that  its  street  odors  are  less  pungent 
and  stifling  than  those  of  a  Chinese  city,  and  it 
is  distinguished  by  three  fine  boulevards,  fifty 
yards  wide,  and  smoothly  graveled,  which  shine 
in  the  prospect  from  the  city  wall  with  a  conspic- 
uousness  increased  by  contrast  with  their  sur- 
roundings. Thronged  with  pedestrians  of  both 
sexes,  all  dressed  in  white,  and  topped  off  with 
such  a  variety  of  headgear  as  the  ingenuity  of 
no  other  people  on  earth  has  invented,  every  pro- 


102  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

fession,  trade,  or  grade  of  social  life  being  dis- 
tinguished by  its  own  peculiar  hat,  these  boule- 
vards present  an  appearance  that  can  hardly  be 
matched  for  picturesqueness  in  the  street  life  of 
the  world.  Another  unique  feature  of  Korean 
street  and  road  life  is  the  endless  procession  of 
bulls,  covered  with  enormous  loads  of  grass  or 
twigs,  until  only  the  face  and  lower  part  of  the 
limbs  are  visible,  led  by  a  ring  in  the  nose,  per- 
fectly docile,  and  politely  turning  aside  without 
suggestion  from  their  drivers  to  give  the  right 
of  way  to  the  passing  traveller. 

Approaching  Korea  from  the  west,  about 
thirty  miles  from  the  mainland  we  pass  through 
^^  an  archipelago  of  small  rocky  islands. 

Here  we  get  our  first  view  of  the  na- 
tives, cruising  among  these  islands  in  their  little 
brown  junks,  which  they  have  loaded  from  the 
hulk  to  the  top  of  the  mast  with  bundles  of  grass 
gathered  on  the  islands  for  fuel.  Our  first  ob- 
servation of  them  is  that  they  are  all  dressed 
from  top  to  toe  in  white  cotton.  This  costume  is 
universal,  and  indicates  one  of  their  most  inter- 
esting national  peculiarities. 

Their    white    dress  is  a  badge  of    national 

mourning.     In  former  years  when  any  member 

A  nation  of      ^^  1^^^  royal  family  died,  the  nation 

mourners,     ^^g  required  to  wear  white  for  twelve 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.      103 

months.  In  later  and  more  troublous  times,  the 
occasion  for  the  white  dress  came  so  often,  and 
the  expense  and  trouble  of  changing  to  it  was 
so  burdensome,  that  they  adopted  it  as  the  per- 
manent national  costume,  so  as  to  be  in  readi- 
ness for  the  emergency  as  it  might  arise. 

When  any  member  of  a  family  dies,  the  fam- 
ily is  expected  to  go  into  mourning  from  one  to 
three  years,  according  to  the  nearness  of  the  re- 
lationship. The  badge  of  this  family  mourning 
for  the  men  is  an  enormous  bamboo  hat,  of  coni- 
cal shape,  coming  do^^m  over  the  face  and  shoul- 
ders like  an  umbrella,  and  signifying  that 
"Heaven  is  angry  with  the  mourner,  and  does 
not  wish  to  look  upon  his  face."  During  this 
mourning  period  it  is  contrary  to  custom  for  the 
man  to  marry.  And  so  it  often  happens  that,  by 
a  succession  of  family  bereavements  one  finds 
himself  carried  on  past  youth  and  middle  life, 
even  to  old  age,  and  condemned  at  last  to  an  en- 
forced permanent  celibacy.  This  is  the  most  de- 
plorable of  calamities  to  an  Oriental,  because 
it  means  that  he  shall  have  no  male  posterity  to 
care  for  his  grave  and  to  worship  his  departed 
spirit.  Furthermore,  with  the  Koreans  it  en- 
tails the  disadvantage  that  an  unmarried  man, 
though  he  should  live  to  ninety  years  of  age,  is 
always  regarded  and  treated  as  a  "boy,"  entitled 


104  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

to  no  respect,  and  always  to  be  addressed  in  the 
"lowest  talk.''  It  is  in  their  funeral  processions 
that  monrning  is  reduced  to  the  finest  of  the  fine 
arts.  The  pall-bearers  carry  the  coffin  hoisted 
on  poles,  singing  a  woeful  dirge,  and  ever  and 
anon  turning  and  retracing  their  steps,  or  stop- 
ping and  marking  time,  as  though  they  could  not 
go  uiDon  their  melancholy  errand.  Much  of  this 
mourning,  of  course,  is  mere  form  and  confor- 
mity to  custom.  But  perhaps  there  is  no  nation 
of  people  more  afflicted  with  real  sorrows  than 
the  Koreans,  and  none  therefore  with  a  deeper 
need  of,  and  a  stronger  claim  on,  that  gospel 
which  offers  the  only  real  comfort  that  this 
world  knows  to  the  mourning  sons  of  men. 

On  landing  at  Chemulpo,  a  boy  about  fourteen 
years  of  age  took  my  two  steamer  trunks  and  a 
Burden-  valisc  and  piled  them  on  a  wooden 

bearers.  rack,whieh  they  call  a '^chee-kai,"  and 
getting  under  the  burden,  walked  with  it  with 
apparent  ease  up  a  steep  hill  about  two  hundred 
yards  to  the  hotel  Another,  of  about  the  same 
size,  took  a  cooking  stove  on  his  back  and  did  the 
same  thing.  It  is  said  to  be  not  uncommon  for  a 
grown  man  to  carry  in  this  way  for  several  miles 
a  burden  of  four  hundred  pounds.  A  country- 
man will  carry  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds 
of  rice  on  his  back  from  the  point  of  the  penin- 


TRANSPORTATION    KY   CHEE-KAI. 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.      105 

siila  two  hundred  miles  to  the  capital,  and  carry 
back  the  same  weight  of  baled  cloth.  A  child 
five  years  old  will  play  all  day  with  one  a  year 
old  strapped  to  his  back.  In  this  way  the  loin 
muscles  are  trained  from  infancy  for  their  work. 
Everywhere  one  goes  throughout  Korea  he  sees 
these  human  beasts  of  burden  stooping  under 
their  loads ;  and  one  thinks  of  the  other  burdens 
they  carry,  of  unforgiven  sins  and  uncomforted 
sorrows,  and  wonders  if  there  might  not  be  for 
them  a  special  meaning  and  a  peculiar  sweet- 
ness in  the  Saviour's  invitation  to  those  that 
^'labor  and  are  heavy  laden."  May  the  day  soon 
come  when  all  of  them  shall  hear  it,  and  when 
all  of  them  who  will  may  come  to  Him  and  find 
rest  for  both  body  and  soul.  To-day,  in  all  the 
Orient,  the  cheapest  of  all  things  is  man.  Only 
in  the  Christ  we  preach  to  him  will  he  find  again 
the  value  of  his  manhood  as  well  as  the  supply 
of  his  spiritual  needs. 

characteris-  ^^^-  Ourzou  mcutions  as  oue  of  the 
tics.  Oriental  traits  which  he  found  every- 
where in  his  travels,  from  India  to  the  farth- 
est east,  "a  statuesque  and  inexhaustible  pa- 
tience, which  attaches  no  value  to  time,  and 
wages  an  unappeasable  warfare  against  hurry." 
Absence  of  Porliaps  it  is  auiong  the  Koreans 
b\irry.         ^j-^^^  ^j-^-g  ^^,^^^  ^^^^  attained  its  most 


106  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

extreme  development.  I  encountered  it  among 
my  very  first  experiences  in  a  way  not  soon 
to  be  forgotten.  Attempting  to  go  by  the  lit- 
tle river  steamer  from  Chemnlpo  to  Seoiil,  we 
had  the  nsnal  experience  a  few  miles  up  the 
river  of  finding  ourselves  deposited  on  a  sand- 
bank. Korean  sail  and  row  boats  were  every- 
where in  evidence,  but  none  of  them  could  be 
persuaded  to  attempt  the  passage  against  an 
adverse  tide.  After  some  hours  delay  a  Japa- 
nese sampan  was  sighted  coming  down  the  river, 
loaded  with  Koreans  on  their  way  to  a  market 
at  some  j)lace  about  two  days'  journey  distant. 
We  proposed  to  the  Japanese  boatman  to  unload 
his  Koreans  and  take  us  up  the  river  for  a  con- 
sideration of  ten  dollars.  After  some  parley, 
they  consented  to  the  arrangement  and  took 
their  places  on  the  river  bank,  where  they  sat 
like  sea  fowls,  perfectly  quiet  and  content,  for 
eighteen  hours  until  the  boatman  returned.  At 
Seoiil  we  had  to  hire  some  ponies,  and  having 
but  one  day  in  which  to  see  the  sights  of  the  cap- 
ital, we  sought  to  expedite  this  business  trans- 
action as  much  as  possible.  Several  times  the 
dealer  brought  us  |)onies  which  he  knew  we 
would  reject  on  account  of  their  dilapidated  con- 
dition. Each  time  Mr.  Bell  Avould  shout  at  him, 
pointing  to  the  front  gate,  ^'Go — go,  go  fast,  and 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.       107 

bring  iis  the  right  kind  of  ponies/'  using  all  the 
additional  hurrying  words  tliat  his  Korean  vo- 
cabulary suitable  to  a  missionary  contained. 
When  the  trade  was  finally  closed,  we  found  that 
we  had  been  engaged  in  it  exactly  five  hours. 
They  will  not  be  in  a  hurry,  and  woe  be  to  the 
fast-going  western  man  that  goes  out  there  and 
tries  to  make  them  be.  The  lines  in  which  Mr. 
Rudyard  Kipling  describes  the  fate  of  the  Eng- 
lishman trying  to  do  the  same  thing  in  India  will 
also  be  true  of  him.     Says  Mr.  Kipling: 

"  It  is  not  good  for  the  Christian's  health 

To  hustle  the  Aryan  brown, 
For  the  Christian  riles  and  the  Aryan  smiles, 

And  he  weareth  the  Christian  down. 
And  the  end  of  the  fight  is  a  tombstone  white, 

With  the  name  of  the  late  deceased, 
And  the  epitaph  drear,  '  A  fool  lies  here, 

Who  tried  to  hustle  the  East.'  " 

The  Koreans  are  similar  to  both  Chinese  and 
Japanese  in  feature  and  physique,  but  in  some 
respects  are  different  from  both.  In  color  they 
are  a  lighter  shade  of  yellow  than  either,  and 
their  hair  is  frequently  of  a  russet  brown  color. 
They  are  of  good  size,  but  much  deteriorated 
physically  from  various  blood  diseases  that  orig- 
inate in  their  unsanitary  mode  of  living.  They 
are  very  hospitable  and  polite,  and,  as  compared 
with  Chinese  and  Japanese,  quite  amiably  dis- 


108  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

posed,  towards  foreigners.  The  masses  are 
wretchedly  ignorant,  as  nmst  be  the  case  under 
such  a  government  as  they  have,  but  a  few  of 
them  who  have  gone  abroad  and  been  educated 
in  this  country  and  in  Europe,  have  demon- 
strated that  they  are  by  no  means  deficient  in 
native  capacity.  Men  like  Dr.  Philip  Jaisohn, 
editor  of  the  Korean  Independent  newspaper, 
and  Mr.  Yun,  a  distinguished  graduate  of  our 
Vanderbilt  University,  and  afterwards  Minis- 
ter of  Education  in  the  government  of  Korea, 
both  of  them  also  bold  and  outspoken  Chris- 
tians, are  men  who,  for  character  and  intelli- 
gence would  be  a  credit  to  any  country.  Any 
country  that  can  produce  such  men  as  these  is  a 
country  worth  trying  to  save. 

The  government  of  Korea  is  one  of  the  old  pa- 
ternal despotisms  that  have  been  the  immemorial 
curse  of  Asia.    The  kinc;,  recently  ad- 

Governmeiit.  .       . 

vanced  to  the  dignity  of  Emperor, 
although  he  is  a  person  of  very  great  inter- 
national insignificance,  is  none  the  less  the  object 
of  superstitious  veneration  by  his  own  people, 
who  call  him  "the  Son  of  Heaven,"  to  whom  his 
will  is  law,  and  who  belong  to  him,  body  and 
soul,  in  fee  simple.  Local  government  is  in  the 
hands  of  a  hereditary  ruling  class  called  Yang- 
bans,  in  whom  we  find  the  apotheosis  of  the  gen- 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.      109 

tleman  of  elegant  leisure.  Being  quite  numer- 
ons,  not  all  of  them  can  be  in  office  at  any  one 
time.  But  those  who  are  in  know  not  how  soon 
they  may  be  out,  and  those  who  are  out  hope 
soon  to  be  in,  and  so  they  stand  by  one  another, 
extending  and  receiving  favors  as  their  mutual 
needs  and  abilities  demand  and  make  practi- 
cable. The  first  principle  of  Yangban  political 
economy  is  that  no  one  of  his  class  is  ever  under 
any  circumstances  to  do  any  work.  Even  to 
light  his  own  pipe  would  require  an  altogether 
unbecoming  amount  of  exertion,  and  so  he 
smokes  a  pipe  with  a  stem  so  long  that  he  must 
needs  have  a  servant  to  light  it  for  him.  When 
out  of  pocket,  he  pays  long  visits  to  his  friends, 
using  and  abusing  the  hospitality  which  it  would 
be  a  disreputable  breach  of  ancient  custom  not 
to  extend. 

The  second  principle  of  their  political  econ- 
omy is  that  no  one  of  the  common  people  is  to 
be  allowed  to  accumulate  property.  A  new  gate, 
a  repaired  roof,  or  any  visible  sign  of  improved 
circumstances  is  liable  to  prove  the  occasion  of 
arrest.  The  charge  may  be  that  the  man  was 
heard  to  speak  disrespectfully  of  his  mother. 
Xo  matter  what  the  charge  is,  once  in  the  magis- 
trate's prison  he  stays  there,  being  ''bambooed" 
every  morning  at  sunrise,  until  all  the  available 


110  Lights  and  Shadows  oi* 

money  of  the  family  has  been  paid  in  as  the 
price  of  his  release.  The  conseqnence  of  this 
system  is,  of  course,  the  nniversal  poverty  of  the 
common  people,  who  not  only  have  no  incentive 
for  trying  to  accumulate  property,  but  the 
strongest  possible  incentive  for  not  doing  so. 
There  is  an  average  grade  of  cruelty  and  oppres- 
sion on  the  part  of  these  officials  that  is  expected, 
and  if  one  does  not  exceed  it,  perhaps  the  people 
may  build  a  monument  to  him  when  he  dies,  in- 
scribed with  the  praise  of  his  moderation  and 
virtue.  But  sometimes  when  one  goes  too  far 
in  excess  of  this  average  grade,  and  becomes  in- 
tolerable, the  people  give  way  to  their  outraged 
sense  of  justice  and  put  him  to  death.  The  fact 
that  they  have  done  this  occasionally  to  individ- 
uals gives  reason  to  hope  that  they  may  some  day 
have  enough  manhood  developed  in  them  to  rise 
up  and  destroy  the  system,  and  thus  open  the 
way  for  the  possible  splendid  future  of  their 
beautiful  and  fertile  land. 

If  it  be  possible  for  the  social  and  domestic 
life  of  a  people  to  be  arranged  on  a  more  unde- 
sociaiand  sirable  basis  than  that  of  the  Ko- 
domestic  lif e.  rcaus,  I  am  unablc  to  imagine  what 
that  arrangement  would  be.  Polygamy  in  the 
technical  sense  does  not  prevail.  Only  one  legal 
wife  is  recognized.    But  every  man  takes  to  him- 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.      Ill 

self  as  many  "secondary''  wives  as  he  can  pro- 
vide room  for  and  support.  In  order  that  they 
may  be  serviceable  in  all  kinds  of  work,  the 
women  of  the  peasantry  have  the  freedom  of 
the  streets  and  roads  and  rice  fields ;  bnt  those  of 
the  upper  classes  live  in  the  back  rooms  of  their 
little  houses  in  total  seclusion.  The  unwilling- 
ness of  the  Koreans  to  let  their  women  be  seen 
leads  to  one  of  the  many  reversals  of  our  cus- 
toms, in  that  men  going  on  pleasure  escapades 
go  in  the  day  time,  while  the  women  go  on  theirs 
at  night.  When  a  woman  must  go  out  in  the  day 
time  she  goes  in  a  closed  chair.  The  coolies  take 
the  chair  and  set  it  do^vn  in  the  back  yard  and 
retire.  When  the  "coast  is  clear,"  the  woman 
comes  out  and  takes  her  seat  in  the  chair  and 
closes  all  the  openings.  Then  the  coolies  come 
back  and  carrv  her  to  her  destination.  Although 
they  cannot  be  seen,  the  number  of  a  man's ^vives 
is  sometimes  revealed  to  the  traveller  in  a  pecu- 
liar way.  In  passing  through  the  villages  a 
ceaseless  plunk,  pJiinh,  plunh  is  heard,  which 
is  the  sound  of  the  ''ironing"  of  the  gentlemen's 
white  clothes  by  beating  them  on  a  smooth  stone 
or  piece  of  wood.  The  frequency  and  rhythm  of 
the  beats  indicate  whether  one,  two,  or  more 
wives  are  engaged  in  the  ironing  industry.  This, 
and  the  preparation  of  his  meals,  and  the  rear- 
ing of  sons  to  look  after  his  post-mortem  inter- 


112  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

ests,  are  what  tlie  men  think  the  women  were 
made  for.  Love,  confidence,  and  companionship 
between  husbands  and  wives  are  ahnost  un- 
known. Hence  there  are  no  homes  in  Korea. 
To  carry  the  light  of  the  gospel  into  these  gloomy 
little  prisons  and  transform  them  into  Christian 
homes  is  the  work  which  a  trumpet  voice  of  duty 
and  opportunity  is  now  calling  the  women  of  our 
country  to  do. 

Excepting  the  non-existence  of  Tauism,  Korea 
is  religiously  a  small  replica  of  China.    The  edu- 
cation of  the  higher  classes  is  based  on 

Religions.  '^ 

the  Confucian  classics,  and  the  Con- 
fucian ethics  are  their  substitute  for  religion. 
Confucian  ancestor  worship  prevails  among  all 
classes.  Buddhism  was  transplanted  from  China 
in  the  fourth  century  and  soon  gained  the  nomi- 
nal adherence  of  the  people,  but  it  seems  never 
to  have  taken  very  strong  hold  of  the  popular 
mind,  and  is  now  far  gone  in  dilapidation  and 
decay.  Its  temples  are  few  and  mean,  and  its 
priesthood  in  such  disrepute  that,  until  since  the 
late  war,  one  was  not  allowed  to  enter  the  gates 
of  the  capital.  Demon  worship  is  universal,  but 
owing  to  the  less  serious  turn  of  the  Korean 
mind,  it  is  not  quite  such  a  reign  of  terror  as  it 
is  in  China.  Yet  it  is  bad  enough,  and  probably 
costs  the  country  each  year  as  much  as  would  be 
necessary  to  evangelize  it  from  one  end  to  the 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.      113 

other.  As  a  defensive  apparatus  against  the 
demons,  we  see  wooden  posts  set  up  on  the  roads 
leading  into  villages,  with  ugly  heads  carved  at 
the  top,  the  lips,  cheeks,  and  eyebrows  being 
smeared  with  red  and  white  paint.  StraAv  ropes, 
old  rags,  and  wooden  figures  of  birds  are  hung 
in  the  boughs  of  trees  for  the  same  purpose. 
When,  in  spite  of  these  obstructions,  the  demons 
get  into  the  village,  bringing  sickness  and  ill- 
luck  to  the  people,  then  the  witch  doctor  comes 
to  the  rescue.  His  equipment  consists  of  vari- 
ous and  effective  noise-producing  instruments, 
and  witch  broths,  brewed  of  toads,  snakes,  lizards, 
ground-up  tigers'  teeth,  and  all  the  horrible  and 
forbidding  things  the  country  affords.  These 
he  administers  by  the  bowlful  to  people  with 
typhoid  fever  or  cholera  or  small-pox.  He  also 
carries  a  long,  sharp  needle,  which  he  inserts 
into  whatever  part  of  the  victim's  body  the  pain 
gives  evidence  of  the  demon's  location,  to  make 
a  hole  to  let  the  demon  out !  These  are  success- 
ful practitioners  to  the  extent  that  in  a  fair  pro- 
portion of  cases  they  succeed  in  letting  the  de- 
mon out  along  with  the  spirit  of  the  patient. 

Such  are  a  few  items  in  the  long  list  of  human 
and  Satanic  oppressions  that  afflict  this  interest- 
ing people.  May  the  day  soon  come  when  they 
shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make 
them  free. 


114  Lights  and  Shadows  of 


CHAPTEE  VIII. 

Mission  Work  ix  Korea. 

The  history  of  Protestant  mission  work  in 
Korea  is  brief  but  glorious.  Althongli  only  fif- 
teen years  have  elapsed  since  the  work  began,  a 
Christian  clmrch  already  exists,  containing  sev- 
eral thousand  members,  a  church  full  of  life, 
vigor  and  aggressiveness,  and  showing  both  the 
disposition  and  the  ability  to  support  and  propa- 
gate itself. 

The  first  missionaries  anticipated  much  dif- 
ficulty in  carrying  on  their  work  from  the  lethar- 
Difflcuif  ^^^  character  of  the  people.  But  the 
enterprising  spirit  manifested  by 
those  who  have  become  Christians  indicates  that 
this  lethargy  is  rather  a  temporary  product  of 
their  environment  than  an  innate  and  ineradi- 
cable trait. 

The  language  is  also  said  to  be  more  difficult 
of  acquisition  than  either  the  Chinese  or  Japa- 
nese, with  the  added  difficulty  that  there  are 
almost  no  competent  native  teachers  of  it  avail- 
able.     The  native  reads  the  written  language 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.      115 

with  a  dreadful  and  discordant  tune,  which  no 
foreigner  could  learn  if  he  would  or  would  learn 
if  he  could.     Consequently,  the  process  of  learn- 
ing to  read  is  slow  and  toilsome  to  the  last  de- 
gree.    Learning  to  talk  is  even  more  slow  and 
toilsome,  because  of  the  multitude  and  confu- 
sion of  honorifics,  the  misuse  of  which  subjects 
the  speaker  to  misunderstanding  and  ridicule. 
One  must  indicate  to  which  one  of  the  many 
social  grades  the  person  spoken  to  belongs  by 
using  a  different  termination  to  the  verb  for 
each  grade.     The  use  of  ^^ligh  talk"  to  a  coolie 
would  be  as  absurd  in  his  estimation  as  the  use 
of  ''low  talk"  to  a  Yangban  would  be  insultino;. 
Patience  and  perseverance,  however,  for  about 
the  space  of  three  years,  will  serve  to  loose  the 
tongue  of  any  missionary  of  average  linguistic 
ability,  and  these  difficulties  are  of  small  ac- 
count compared  with  some  that  have  to  be  en- 
countered in  other  fields. 

Three  things  especially  combine  to  make  Ko- 
rea one  of  the  most  interesting  and  hopeful  of 
Encoi^mging  ^^^1  missiou  fields  to-day.  One  is  the 
features.  ^^.^y  the  people  live,  in  villages  rather 
than  in  large  cities,  rendering  them  more  easy 
of  access  and  more  susceptible  of  being  influ- 
enced. Another  is  the  disposition  they  have 
shown  to  help  themselves  and  support  their  own 


116  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

work.  The  third  is  their  comparative  friendli- 
ness to  the  foreigner.  Instead  of  calling  him 
^^foreign  devil/'  like  the  Chinese,  they  look  up 
to  him  with  respect  and  address  him  as  Tai-in 
— ^^Great  man" — and,  although  at  first  some- 
what offish  and  afraid,  by  a  little  kindness  they 
are  easily  won  to  confidence  and  friendship. 
This  friendly  attitude  is  perhaps  largely  due  to 
the  fact  that  from  the  beginning  the  medical 
work  has  gone  hand  in  hand  with,  or  rather  in 
advance  of,  the  preaching  work. 

The  first  resident  missionary  was  Dr.  11.  ^N". 
Allen,  of  the  I^orthern  Presbyterian  Board. 
Medical  Soon  after  his  arrival,  in  1884,  he 

missions,  -yy^g  called  in  to  sew  up  some  gashes 
in  the  person  of  Mr.  Min  Yong  Ik,  a  cousin  of 
the  Queen,  made  during  a  riot  at  the  Palace.  In 
appreciation  of  this  service  the  king  established 
a  hospital,  of  which  Dr.  Allen  was  put  in  charge. 
This  opened  the  way  for  Dr.  H.  ^.  Underwood, 
who  came  soon  after,  to  begin  his  evangelistic 
work.  And  from  that  day  to  this  Dr.  Allen, 
Dr.  Avison,  Dr.  Scranton,  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  church,  and  other  physicians  at  Seoiil, 
have,  by  their  ministrations  of  mercy  to  the 
thousands  of  snfferers  who  have  come  to  them 
for  help,  been  constantly  making  friends  for  the 
gospel  and  securing  the  government  toleration 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.      117 

ana  protection,  which  have  enabled  us  to  carry 
on  our  work  everywhere,  with  one  or  two  excep- 
tions, without  let  or  hindrance.  Among  our 
pioneer  band  of  Southern  Presbyterians  is  Dr. 
A.  D.  Drew,  who  worked  with  the  other  physi- 
cians at  the  capital  for  the  first  three  years  while 
getting  his  tongue  loosed,  and  has  since  been 
working  in  the  southern  provinces  where  the 
Southern  Presbyterian  stations  are.  He  is  now 
kno^^Ti  all  over  the  country,  and  by  reason  of  his 
work  has,  I  believe,  more  influence  than  any 
other  man,  native  or  foreign,  in  southern  Korea. 
While  I  was  at  his  home  in  Kunsan  two  men 
came  to  be  treated  by  him,  both  of  whom  had 
walked  from  their  homes,  more  than  a  hundred 
miles  distant.  As  the  result  of  his  unremitting 
and  self-denying  labors,  and  those  of  other  be- 
loved physicians,  the  way  now  lies  wide  open  all 
over  southern  Korea  for  our  gospel  work. 

I  saw  at  Seoiil  a  neat  church,  seating  about 
two  hundred  people,  which  the  native  Presbyte- 
Native  ^^^^  Christians  there  had  built  en- 

enterprise.  tircly  by  their  OA^Ti  exertions  and  sac- 
rifices. The  men  wrought  with  their  hands,  the 
women  sewed,  one  man  pawned  his  spectacles, 
and  most  of  them  tithed  their  incomes  of  from 
two  to  five  dollars  a  month  twice  over  for  the 
cause.     In  the  work  of  the  Northern  Presbyte- 


118  Lights  and  SiiiU.)Ows  of 

rians  in  the  northern  provinces  thirty-five 
chnrches  have  been  built  in  this  way,  many  self- 
supporting  schools  established,  and  many  native 
workers  are  spreading  the  gospel  news  far  and 
wide,  nearly  all  of  them  entirely  supported  by 
their  own  people. 

The  work  at  our  southern  stations  is  in  a  less 
advanced  stage,  but  is  being  conducted  on  the 
same  self-supporting  basis,  and  is  opening  up  in 
a  way  that  gives  promise  of  the  same  kind  of  suc- 
cess. At  Chunju  I  found  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Rey- 
nolds, and  Mr.  and  Miss  Tate,  and  Mr.  Harri- 
son and  Miss  Ingold  living,  not  in  the  palatial 
residences  that  certain  Oriental  travellers  on 
the  steamer  going  over  told  me  the  missionaries 
akvays  lived  in,  but  in  the  regulation  mud  huts 
of  the  natives,  with  their  little  rooms  of  from 
six  to  nine  feet  square.  Here  they  had  been  for 
two  years.  And  yet  they  seemed  as  happy  as 
any  of  the  people  I  know  who  live  in  two-story 
brick  houses  in  this  country.  At  Kunsan  I  found 
Dr.  Drew  and  Mr.  Junkin  with  their  families 
and  Miss  Linnie  Davis  living  not  only  in  the 
thatched  mud  huts,  but  also  in  the  mud  when 
it  rained,  for  they  were  down  in  the  valley,  right 
among  the  natives.  They  were  happy  also,  ex- 
cept that  some  of  them  were  suffering  in  health 
from  their  surroundings.     If  all  our  church  at 


Mission  Woek  in  the  Far  East.      119 

home  could  have  communicated  to  it  some  of 
their  heroic  and  self-sacrificing  spirit,  the  whole 
Korean  peninsula  would  soon  be  resounding 
with  what  I  heard  at  the  Sunday  morning  ser- 
vice at  Kunsan.  About  forty  men  were  seated 
on  the  floor  of  the  little  native  dwelling  that 
served  for  a  church.  About  the  same  number  of 
women  were  present.  They  were  required  by 
Korean  custom  to  be  invisible,  but  were  permit- 
ted to  hear  and  participate  in  the  service  through 
a  piece  of  cheese  cloth  stretched  over  the  door  of 
an  adjoining  room.  When  Mr.  Keynolds 
preached  I  was  impressed  by  their  reverent  at- 
tention. When  he  led  in  prayer  they  leaned  over 
until  their  foreheads  rested  on  their  hands  laid 
upon  the  floor.  When  they  sang  their  words  were 
strange  and  their  voices  unmelodious,  but  I  rec- 
ognized the  tune  as  Coronation,  and  I  knew  they 
were  singing  in  their  Korean  tongue, 

"  All  hail  the  power  of  Jesus'  name, 
Let  angels  prostrate  fall; 
Bring  forth  the  royal  diadem, 
And  crown  him  Lord  of  all." 

Dear  reader,  we  cannot  tell  what  changes  the 
future  may  bring,  but  we  know  that  this  is  the 
day  of  the  church's  opportunity  in  Korea.  God 
has  set  before  us  there  an  open  door,  which  He 
will  permit  no  man  to  shut  if  we  will  only  enter 


120    Mission  Work  in  the  Fae  East. 

it.  It  is  in  the  hope  that  it  may  contrihute  some- 
thing towards  awakening  those  who  read  it  to 
the  need  of  the  gospel,  and  to  the  obligation  rest- 
ing on  us  to  make  it  kno^vn  in  Japan,  China,  and 
Korea  that  this  little  volume  is  sent  forth. 


Appei^dix. 


REPORT  TO  THE   EXECUTIVE   COMMITTEE   OF 

FOREIGN    MISSIONS,    BY   THE    SECRETARY, 

^      ON  HIS  VISIT  TO  CHINA,  KOREA  AND  JAPAN, 

1897. 

To  the  Executive  Committee  of  Foreign  Missions: 

I  hereby  present  to  you  the  report  of  my  visit  to 
our  missions  in  China,  Korea  and  Japan.  This 
visit  was  made  in  accordance  with  the  advice  of  the 
General  Assembly  sitting  at  Charlotte,  N.  C,  and 
with  the  instruction  of  the  Executive  Committee 
given  at  its  meeting  held  on  June  8,  1897. 

The  advice  of  the  xVssembly  was  given  on  condi- 
tion that  the  expense  of  the  visit  should  be  pro- 
vided for  without  drawing  on  the  Foreign  Mission 
treasury.  The  committee's  instruction  was  given 
on  receipt  of  information  that  a  contribution  of 
$100  had  been  offered  from  a  friend  in  the  city  of 
New  Y^ork,  not  connected  with  our  church,  and 
that  other  contributions,  believed  to  be  sufficient, 
had  been  offered  from  other  private  sources,  which 
could  not  in  any  way  affect  the  regular  contribu- 
tions to  our  treasury.  I  am  glad  to  report  on  my 
return  that  the  expense  of  the  visit  was  thus  fully 
met. 

Leaving  home  on  July  26th,  I  sailed  from  San 
Francisco  on  August  5th,  and  reached  Shanghai 
on  September  1st.    The  plan  of  the  visit  included 


122  Lights  and  Shadows  oi? 

an  absence  of  five  months,  allowing  two  months  for 
the  outward  and  return  voyage,  and  three  months 
for  work  in  the  different  fields.  Of  this  time  it 
was  arranged  to  give  six  weeks  to  China  and  three 
each  to  Korea  and  Japan. 

In  China  I  visited  all  the  stations  of  what  is 
known  as  "The  Southern  Circuit/'  except  Lingwu, 
which  I  was  prevented  from  reaching  by  continu- 
ous rains  during  my  visit  to  Hangchow.  On  ac- 
count of  detention  by  sickness  and  the  impos- 
sibility of  securing  prompt  transportation,  I  was 
compelled  to  forego  the  pleasure  and  profit  of  visit- 
ing the  three  northern  stations  of  Tsing-kiang-pu, 
Suchien,  and  Chuchow-foo.  In  Korea  I  visited 
Seoul,  where  the  headquarters  of  the  mission  are 
still  temporarily  located,  and  the  two  stations  in 
the  southern  provinces,  Chun-ju  and  Kunsan,  the 
only  ones  as  yet  regularly  occupied.  In  Japan  I 
visited  all  the  stations  except  Takamatsu/  where, 
at  present,  we  have  no  resident  missionary. 

On  the  ninth  day  of  December  I  took  passage  on 
the  Pacific  Mail  S.  S.  China,  reaching  San  Fran- 
cisco on  December  23d  and  Nashville  on  December 
2Sth. 

At  every  point  visited,  with  two  or  three  excep- 
tions, I  preached  to  the  native  Christians  through 
an  interpreter,  and  also,  as  opportunity  offered,  in 
the  street  chapels  to  congregations  of  unbelievers. 
Everywhere  the  native  Christians  received  my  visit 
as  an  evidence  of  our  special  interest  in  them,  and 
everywhere  I  was  charged  by  them  with  messages 
of  love  and  gratitude  to  the  church  at  home,  and 
with  requests  for  our  prayers  in  their  behalf. 

^  Since  occupied  by  the  Revs.  W.  C.  and  W.  McS.  Buch- 
anan. 


Mission  Wobk  in  the  Fae  East.      123 

Two  weeks  of  the  time  given  to  China  were  occu- 
pied with  the  exercises  of  the  Thirtieth  Anniver- 
sary Conference  of  the  Mission,  and  of  the  regular 
annual  mission  meeting,  held  at  the  same  time.  I 
also  attended  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Korean 
mission  held  at  Kunsan,  and  an  adjourned  meeting 
of  the  Japan  mission  held  at  Kobe.  I  participated 
freely  in  the  deliberations  of  all  these  meetings,  on 
the  understanding  that  no  advice  or  opinions  I 
might  express  concerning  matters  falling  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  missions  were  to  be  taken 
as  official  declarations,  or  to  have  any  other  weight 
than  that  to  which  their  wisdom  might  entitle 
them.  I  was  thus  enabled  to  gain  much  valuable 
information  concerning  the  details  of  the  work. 
These  meetings  also  furnished  the  opportunity  of 
becoming  personally  acquainted  with  many  of  the 
missionaries  who  were  previously  known  to  me 
only  through  correspondence,  and  for  establishing 
bonds  of  personal  affection,  which  I  accoimt  as 
among  the  most  valuable  of  the  results  to  be  at- 
tained by  my  visit  to  them. 

So  far  from  feeling  qualified  by  so  brief  and 
hurried  a  visit,  to  speak  with  authority  on  those 
questions  of  method  and  policy  concerning  which 
both  missionary  societies  at  home  and  missionaries 
on  the  field  have  been  divided  in  opinion,  I  only 
realize  the  more  how  difficult  and  many  sided  many 
of  these  questions  are,  and  am  more  than  ever  con- 
vinced of  the  wisdom  of  that  feature  of  our  revised 
manual,  which  devolves  on  the  missions  a  larger 
share  of  responsibility  than  they  formerly  had  for 
the  management  of  the  work  in  the  field. 

In  stating  certain  conclusions  to  which  I  was  led 
by  my  observation  of  the  work,  I  will  speak  first  of 
some  which  concern  all  of  the  three  missions  alike. 


124  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

Missionary  Salaries. 
In  1895  the  salaries  of  our  missionaries  in  the 
East  Avere  fixed  on  the  basis  of  a  report  made  by 
Rev.  J.  L.  Stuart,  in  April,  1893,  after  a  visit  and 
careful  investigation  made  by  him  as  to  the  con- 
ditions and  cost  of  living  in  the  three  fields,  as 
follows: 

Single  Married 

Missionaries.  Couples. 

China,     $500  $    800 

Japan  and  Korea,   GOO  1,000 

Salaries  in  Japan  have  since  been  reduced,  ac- 
cording to  estimates  sent  from  that  field,  to  $500 
for  single  missionaries,  and  $950  for  married 
couples,  and  in  China  to  $450  for  single  mission- 
aries, and  in  Korea  $550.  These  salaries  are  lower 
than  those  of  any  other  missionaries  in  those  fields 
receiving  a  fixed  salary.  (The  China  Inland  Mis- 
sion, the  Christian  Alliance,  and  possibly  some 
others  pay  a  pro  rata  of  the  funds  received — ^the 
salaries  being  thus  contingent  as  to  amount.)  Do 
they  now  admit  of  any  further  reduction  consist- 
ently with  the  idea  of  giving  our  missionaries  "a 
comfortable  and  economical  support?" 

On  the  one  hand,  since  the  date  of  Mr.  Stuart's 
report,  the  movement  of  the  rate  of  exchange  has 
been  in  favor  of  the  missionaries.  The  Mexican 
dollar,  then  worth  about  sixty-two  and  a  half  cents, 
is  now  worth  about  forty-eight  cents,  and  the  Jap- 
anese yen,  then  worth  seventy  cents,  is  now  worth 
fifty  cents. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  movement  of  prices, 
especially  in  the  last  two  3^ears,  has  been  against 
them,  about  in  the  same  degree,  except  in  the  in- 
terior of  China.  There  the  rise  in  prices  has  been 
steady,  but  less  rapid  than  in  Japan  and  Korea. 


Mission  Wokk  ix  the  Fak  East.      125 

¥ov  example,  Mr.  Stuart  reported  silver  prices  of 
leading  staples  in  1893  as  follows:  Flour,  $9  per 
barrel;  beef,  19  cents  per  pound;  butter,  56  to 
60  cents;  soft  coal,  per  ton,  $4.50  to  $6  in  Japan, 
$6.50  to  $8.50  in  China  and  Korea. 

The  prices  of  these  staples  at  the  time  of  my 
visit  were:  Flour,  $13  to  $16  per  barrel;  beef,  35 
cents  to  45  cents  per  pound ;  butter,  60  cents  to  65 
cents  in  China  and  Japan,  80  cents  to  85  cents  in 
Korea;  soft  coal,  Japan  $8  to  $10,  according  to 
location;  China,  $10  to  $13,  according  to  location; 
Korea,  $17,  at  Seoul.  Prices  of  other  staples  have 
increased  about  in  proportion  to  these.  All  the 
missions  are  compelled  to  order  a  considerable 
part,  and  the  Korean  mission  especially  a  large 
part  of  their  supplies  from  San  Francisco. 

In  Korea  and  some  parts  of  China  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  know  whether  meat  offered  for  sale  in  the 
native  markets  has  been  killed  or  died  of  disease. 
In  Korea  beeves  are  usually  strangled,  instead  of 
butchered.  Xearly  all  the  children  have  to  be  fed 
on  condensed  milk,  something  in  the  climate  seem- 
ing to  interfere  with  the  ordinary  course  of  nature 
in  that  respect.  The  transport  charges  on  these 
foreign  goods  constitute  a  heavy  item  of  expense, 
amounting  in  Korea  to  from  30  per  cent,  to  40  per 
cent,  on  the  original  cost.  Along  with  the  rise  of 
prices  of  food  supplies  there  has  been,  and  is  now 
going  on,  a  rise  in  the  price  of  native  labor. 
Woolen  goods  are  cheap,  but  cotton  goods  and 
other  things  entering  into  the  make-up  of  wo- 
men's outfits  are  costly.  Most  of  the  single  women 
also  find  it  necessary  in  the  interest  of  their  work, 
to  keep  house  rather  than  to  board.  Native  ideas 
of  propriety  also  require  them  to  have  a  female 
companion  in  travelling.    For  these  and  other  rea- 


126  Lights  aj^d  Shadows  of 

sons  the  cost  of  living  is  fully  as  great,  if  not 
greater,  for  single  women  than  for  single  men. 

Dentistry  is  enormously  high,  in  China  the  for- 
eign dentists  at  Shanghai  being  the  only  ones  ac- 
cessible. In  Japan  there  are  native  dentists  who 
work  at  reasonable  rates,  but  foreign  dentists 
charge  about  the  same  as  in  Shanghai,  and  to  have 
work  done  satisfactorily,  it  is  necessary  to  employ 
foreign  dentists. 

On  the  whole,  my  conclusion  from  all  I  could  see 
and  learn  in  regard  to  this  matter  is  that  the  sal- 
aries as  fixed  in  1895,  on  the  basis  of  Mr.  Stuart's 
report,  are  as  low  as  they  can  be  made  without  the 
danger  of  subjecting  our  missionaries  to  actual 
hardship  and  embarrassment.  My  conviction  is 
most  decided  that  no  reduction  should  be  made  in 
the  salaries  of  married  missionaries. 

Mission  Property. 

In  the  matter  of  mission  property  our  policy  has 
always  been  to  own  as  little,  in  foreign  lands,  as 
the  necessities  of  the  work  would  allow.  I  saw 
nothing  that  led  me  to  doubt,  but  much  to  confirm 
my  belief  in  the  wisdom  of  this  policy. 

In  China,  while  the  right  to  purchase  land  is 
guaranteed  by  treaty,  the  actual  purchase  is  often 
resisted  by  the  local  officials  and  sometimes  be- 
comes the  occasion  of  serious  trouble.  In  Korea 
we  can  gain  no  fee  simple  title  to  land  except  in  a 
treaty  port,  and  in  Japan  none  at  all.  But  in  the 
case  of  missionary  residences,  in  China  the  alterna- 
tive is  between  the  danger  of  having  trouble  with, 
and  perhaps  temporarily  aggravating  the  hostility 
of  the  natives,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  certainty 
of  suffering  from  climate  and  environment  on  the 
other.    In  Chinese  cities  the  dwellings,  even  of  the 


Mission  Work  in  the  Far  East.      12^ 

better  classes,  are  packed  together  on  densely 
crowded  streets,  and  surrounded  by  indescribable 
conditions  of  discomfort  and  unhealthfulness.  The 
ruling  idea  in  their  architecture  is  the  exclusion  of 
sunlight  and  fresh  air.  The  physical  constitution 
of  the  Orientals  seems,  by  the  power  of  heredity, 
to  be  in  some  degree  adjusted  to  these  conditions. 
But  in  the  case  of  Europeans  and  Americans  the 
battle  is  always  sooner  or  later  a  losing  one.  Sev- 
eral of  our  missionary  families  in  China  are  now 
living  in  native  houses,  and  in  every  such  case 
there  were  one  or  more  members  of  such  families 
who  seemed  to  me  to  be  suffering  in  consequence  of 
it.  Moreover,  in  order  to  preserve  the  mental  and 
physical  condition  necessary  for  their  best  work, 
in  China  especially,  our  missionaries  need  homes, 
to  which  they  may  periodically  retire,  and  find  rest 
from  the  nerve  strain  produced  by  the  ceaseless 
pressure  of  curious,  unsympathetic,  and  hostile 
crowds. 

In  Korea,  and  in  the  part  of  the  country  occu- 
pied by  our  mission  especially,  it  may  be  said  in 
general  that  there  are  no  native  houses,  but  only 
huts,  with  mud  walls  and  thatched  roofs  and 
rooms  the  size  of  our  dressing  rooms  and  closets. 
Japanese  houses  and  the  conditions  surrounding 
them  are  better  than  those  of  China  and  Korea, 
but  their  walls  are  all  sliding  partitions  which 
cannot  be  made  tight  enough  to  afford  adequate 
protection  from  the  winter  climate.  Leases  of 
ground  may  be  made  in  Japan  for  periods  of 
twenty  (20)  years  or  more.  The  rents  paid  for  a 
native  house  for  ten  years  will  ordinarily  be  suffi- 
cient to  build  a  comfortable  foreign  style  dwelling. 
My  conviction  is,  therefore,  that  in  all  those  fields 
our  missionaries  should  be  encourasred  to  obtain 


128  Lights  and  Sh^u^ows  o:^ 

land,  with  such  security  of  tenure  as  the  case  ad- 
mits of,  and  build  their  own  dwellings,  rather  than 
to  risk  life  or  health  in  attempting  to  live  in  na- 
tive houses. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  matter  how  much  our  in- 
come may  be  increased,  I  trust  that  no  large  pro- 
portion of  it  will  go  into  the  mission  buildings  of 
which  I  saw  so  many  in  the  East,  planned  on  a 
scale  which  the  native  church  can  never  hope  to 
rival,  producing  the  impression  of  unlimited 
wealth  at  the  disposal  of  the  missions  that  build 
them,  and  thus  tending  to  discourage  rather  than 
to  stimulate  native  effort. 

SELF-SUPPORT. 

For  some  years  past  there  has  been  an  effort, 
more  or  less  united,  on  the  part  of  the  missions 
and  the  societies  at  home  to  introduce  into  the 
work  more  largely  than  heretofore,  the  principle 
of  self-support.  I  am  glad  to  report  that  our  mis- 
sions are  among  the  most  strenuous  supporters  of 
this  policy,  in  all  the  eastern  fields.  Our  China 
mission  has  been  noted  from  the  beginning  for  the 
economy  with  which  its  work  in  conducted,  which 
fact  was  more  than  once  mentioned  to  its  praise 
by  members  of  other  missions  who  took  part  in 
our  Anniversary  Conference.  By  pursuing  a  dif- 
ferent policy  they  could  have  had  more  visible  re- 
sults of  their  work  to  show  at  the  present  time ; 
but  the  foundations  they  have  been  laying  would 
have  been  less  solid  and  enduring;  and  they  can 
now  look  forward  to  a  brighter  and  happier  future 
than  if  they  had  sought  to  force  a  more  rapid  de- 
velopment by  the  lavish  use  of  money. 

In  Japan,  where  the  opposite  policy  has  been 
pursued  by  all  the  missions,  more  than  elsewhere. 


Mission  Work  j^  the  Far  East.      12D 

the  zeal  of  our  mission  in  the  policy  of  self-sup- 
port has  brought  its  members  in  some  places  into 
more  or  less  strained  relations  with  leaders  of  the 
native  church.  It  is  too  much  to  expect  of  these 
that  they  should  see  the  matter  from  our  stand- 
point, and  the  problem  of  changing  from  the  old 
to  the  new  plan  is  one  that  requires  to  be  handled 
with  great  tact  and  delicacy.  But  in  my  judgment 
the  change  is  vital  to  the  future  purity  and  power 
of  the  church,  and  those  who  are  working  to  that 
end  should  receive  tlie  earnest  sympathy  and  co- 
operation of  their  home  societies  and  boards.  With 
such  co-operation,  the  success  of  the  movement  in 
behalf  of  self-support  in  Japan  is  already  assured. 
Our  Korean  work  is  being  conducted  from  the 
beginning  on  the  "Nevius  Plan"  of  self-support^ 
and  the  native  Christians  there  have  not  learned, 
and  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will  never  learn,  that  there 
is  any  other  plan. 

Medical  Work. 
I  was  impressed  by  all  I  saw  of  our  medical  mis- 
sion work,  with  its  exceeding  value  and  import- 
ance. But  so  much  depends  on  the  work  being 
done  in  the  best  way,  that  only  those  should  be 
sent  as  medical  missionaries  who  have  had  the  best 
training  our  schools  afford,  supplemented  by  some 
hospital  experience.  They  should  also  have  a  full 
and  thorough  equipment  for  surgical  work.  The 
amount  of  $200  allowed  by  our  manual  for  medical 
outfit  is  insufficient  for  this  purpose.  It  is  the 
judgment  of  all  our  medical  missionaries  with 
whom  I  consulted  that  this  amount  should  be  at 
least  doubled.  The  dispensary  work  is  valuable, 
but  does  not  furnish  the  opportunity  which  is  so 
desirable  for  spiritua.l  work  in  connection  with  the 


130  Lights  and  Shadows  o-ff 

medical  work.  For  this  purpose  it  is  necessary 
that  they  be  furnished  with  adequate  facilities  for 
treating  "in  patients/^  which  none  of  them  now 
have  except  Dr.  Wilkinson,  at  Soochow.  It  is  not 
the  policy  of  the  committee,  nor  of  our  missions, 
to  invest  Foreign  Mission  funds  in  the  building  of 
large  hospitals.  But  in  order  to  success  of  the 
work,  and  to  securing  the  best  spiritual  results 
from  it,  the  effort  should  be  made  to  supply  each 
medical  missionary,  as  soon  as  possible,  with  means 
to  build  some  inexpensive  rooms  where  difficult 
cases  can  be  properly  treated  and  cared  for,  and 
where  the  missionary  evangelist  can  have  the  op- 
portunity of  reaching  them. 

It  was  also  a  common  complaint  in  the  hospitals 
I  visited  that  their  evangelistic  force  was  insuffi- 
cient to  follow  up  the  work  so  as  to  secure  the 
largest  and  best  results  from  it.  I  think  that  in 
the  future  development  of  our  medical  work  we 
should  look  well  to  this  point.  The  tendency  of 
all  "institutional"  mission  work  is  to  localization, 
whereas,  it  seems  to  me,  such  work,  under  the 
present  conditions  of  the  mission  problem,  is  only 
justifiable  when  it  is  so  managed  that  the  institu- 
tion becomes  a  center  of  radiation. 

China. 
Notwithstanding  the  many  and  great  difficulties 
that  encompass  the  work  in  China,  in  most  of  the 
places  occupied  by  our  workers,  encouraging  prog- 
ress is  being  made.  If  I  should  offer  any  criticism 
of  our  past  policy  in  that  field,  it  would  be  that 
there  has  all  along  been  too  much  scattering  of  the 
forces.  Stations  have  been  opened  faster  than  we 
have  been  able  to  man  them  for  effective  work, 
with  the  results  that  new  missionaries  have  often 
been  pushed  into  places  of  responsibility  before 


Mission  Woek  in  the  Far  East.      131 

they  were  prepared  for  it  by  a  mastery  of  the  lan- 
guage, and  the  work  of  itinerating  the  country  has 
suffered. 

Most  of  our  centers  are  in  the  large  cities, 
where  it  is  necessary,  for  many  reasons,  that  they 
should  be.  But  good  strategy  would  seem  to  re- 
quire that  special  emphasis  be  placed  on  work  in 
the  country,  because  there  is  at  present  the  point  of 
least  resistance,  and  because  among  the  farmers  in 
the  country  villages  there  is  to  be  found  a  more 
hopeful  element  out  of  which  to  gather  self-sup- 
porting and  aggressive  churches  than  that  which 
is  mainly  accessible  to  us  in  the  cities.  To  carry 
on  effective  country  work  from  a  center  in  the  city, 
requires  at  least  three  men,  besides  the  necessary 
provision  for  women's  work.  There  are  only  three 
of  our  China  stations  having  that  number  of  men 
who  have  been  in  the  field  long  enough  t©  do  regu- 
lar work.  I  would  therefore  recommend  that  the 
committee  veto  the  opening  of  any  more  stations 
in  China  until  all  those  now  occupied  have  been 
properly  manned. 

Japan. 

The  missionary  situation  in  Japan  is  in  some 
respects  critical,  and  contains  many  elements  re- 
quiring wisdom  and  forbearance  in  those  who  have 
to  deal  with  it.  The  spirituality  of  the  native 
cburch  has  suffered  from  the  political  ferment  the 
country  has  been  in  during  and  since  the  war  with 
China,  and  from  the  influences  that  have  come  to  it 
in  connection  with  the  opening  of  foreign  trade. 
Its  orthodoxy  has  suffered  from  the  elimination 
of  the  reformed  symbols  from  the  creed  of  the 
Church  of  Christ  in  Japan,  and  from  the  importa- 
tion from  this  country  and  from  Europe  of  ration- 
alistic viewsj  especially  concerning  the  word  of 


132  Lights  and  Shadows  of 

God  and  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement.  Its  activ- 
ity has  been  lessened  by  the  too  large  use  of  foreign 
money  in  the  employment  of  native  workers.  On 
the  other  hand,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting 
many  members  of  the  native  church  who  impressed 
me  as  being  sound,  earnest  and  praying  men,  as 
well  as  men  of  character  and  ability.  The  estab- 
lishment of  a  church  of  which  this  can  be  said,  is 
one  of  the  successes,  and  not  one  of  the  failures  of 
mission  work,  and  its  future  may  be  looked  forward 
to  with  encouragement  and  hope. 

I  think  it  is  now  generally  recognized  that,  in 
Japan,  mission  work  in  general,  and  as  a  conse- 
quence, that  of  the  Japanese  church  which  has 
grown  out  of  it,  is  subject  to  the  criticism  of 
having  been  too  much  confined  to  one  class  of  the 
people.  When  the  feudal  system  was  overthrown, 
the  feudal  retainers,  known  as  "Samurai,"  found 
themselves  in  the  new  order  of  things  without  a 
reason  of  existence.  This  event,  happening  Just 
before  the  country  was  opened  to  mission  work, 
furnished  the  opportunity  of  reaching  this  class, 
which  proved  readily  accessible,  and  out  of  it  the 
present  membership  of  the  churches  has  been 
largely  gathered.  The  present  most  urgent  need 
is  the  evangelization  of  the  lower  classes.  And 
this  is  a  work  which  a  ministry  drawn  mainly 
from  the  Samurai  class,  because  of  the  strong  class 
spirit  in  all  Oriental  countries,  and  for  many  other 
reasons,  cannot  reasonably  be  expected  to  push 
with  the  energy  and  sympathy  necessary  to  success. 

For  this  purpose  an  increased  number  of  foreign 
missionaries  is  needed,  until  a  native  ministry 
drawn  from  the  lower  classes  can  be  raised  up. 
Missionaries  for  Japan,  however,  should  be  selected 
with  greatest  care.  They  should  if  possible  be 
tried  men — men  with  some  degree  of  maturity,  ex- 
perience, and  approved  wisdom.       *     ♦     * 


Mission  Woek  in  tue  Fau  East.      133 

Korea. 

Apart  from  some  ominous  clouds  on  the  politi- 
cal horizon,  the  whole  missionary  situation  in  Ko- 
rea is  cheering  in  the  highest  degree.  The  people 
are  much  less  anti-foreign  than  other  Orientals. 
Their  friendship  is  readily  won  by  kind  treatment. 
The  Presbyterian  missions  working  in  co-opera- 
tion there  are  unanimous  in  support  of  the  self- 
supporting  policy,  and  consequently  there  is  no 
dilliculty  in  carrying  on  the  work  on  that  basis. 
What  competent  observers  have  pronounced  to  be 
the  most  interesting  and  successful  mission  work 
now  being  done  in  the  world  is  that  of  the  N"orth- 
ern  Presbyterians  in  the  province  of  Pyeng-Yang. 
The  work  of  our  mission  in  the  southern  provinces, 
as  yet  only  two  years  old,  is  already  yielding  re- 
sults in  hopeful  conversions  and  in  large  numbers 
of  inquirers  and  adherents.  *  *  *  There  are 
few  large  cities,  the  people  living  mostly  in  vil- 
lages, rendering  them  more  easy  of  access,  and 
more  susceptible  of  being  influenced.  If  the  field 
could  be  at  once  supplied  with  a  sufficient  number 
of  workers,  the  church  might  soon  have  the  joy 
of  seeing  the  whole  nation  evangelized.  This  re- 
sult can  be  achieved  much  more  easily  before  than 
after  the  advent  of  ivestern  civilizatian.  Unedu- 
cated Buddhism  and  Confucianism  are  much  less 
formidable  foes  than  educated  atheism. 

Political  troubles  may  also  complicate  the  situa- 
tion in  the  future.  N'ow  the  way  is  open  for  al- 
most unhindered  gospel  work.  While  in  Korea  I 
was  continually  reminded  of  the  Saviour's  words 
concerning  the  white  fields  and  the  waiting  har- 
vest, and  I  could  not  help  from  coveting  the  privi- 
lege offered  to  those  to  whom  God  has  given  the 
means  that  would  enable  them  to  say  to  us,  "Find 
the  men  who  are  willing  to  2:0  and  do  this  work, 
and  we  will  provide  their  support.'' 


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